Peter Thiel: Competition Is for Losers - WSJ

Final paragraphs from an excerpt of Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future, by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters (to be published 9/16)

"Perfect equilibrium may describe the void that is most of the universe. It may even characterize many businesses. But every new creation takes place far from equilibrium. In the real world outside economic theory, every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot. Monopoly is therefore not a pathology or an exception. Monopoly is the condition of every successful business.

Tolstoy famously opens "Anna Karenina" by observing: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Business is the opposite. All happy companies are different: Each one earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem. All failed companies are the same: They failed to escape competition."

Peter Thiel: Competition Is for Losers - WSJ