How can some people successfully create something entirely new - go from zero to one? Peter Thiel answers this question in his bestseller, Zero to One. Last week, I wrote about Thiel's recommendations for an entrepreneurial mindset, his views on competition, and his ideas about a forward-thinking startup. To find out more about how to think like an entrepreneur, you can read that article here.

However, what my previous article neglected was the crucial three Ps:

From the eccentric characters of founders to the importance of a singular vision, people are essential to the success of startups. But for people to work well together, there needs to be a clear understanding of how power operates and the company's overall vision.

Entrepreneurs are poised to create exciting progress in society, especially through the creation of ever-smarter technologies, but this is only possible if you truly believe that there is anything new to discover in the world - and that technology can be complementary to society rather than a taker of jobs and harbinger of doom.

Thiel dedicates considerable time to the idiosyncrasies of various famous startup founders, comparing the success of t-shirt-clad Elon Musk to suited "clean-tech" startup founders, and going so far as to state that "real technologists" would never wear suits... However, he also stresses the importance of having good people to work with - from the start.

As Drew Marshall writes for Forbes:

"The notion that one person can sustainably build and lead a company has been laid waste by the ever-increasing complexity of the business landscape. The actions required to create a new business demand the integration and coordination of multiple perspectives and sets of expertise. The lone hero is no longer the path to success—if it ever truly was."

Contrary to common belief, a successful startup relies not just upon the founding figure but upon the group of people with whom he/she works. This team is vital to the development and success of your business, an idea which adheres to what Thiel's friends and associates nickname "Thiel's law".

"Thiel's law" is about ensuring that your startup has a strong foundation upon which to build. Thiel advises readers to choose the right co-founder and treat this partnership as you would a marriage - till death do you part. (Of course, there's always the possibility of acrimonious divorce, but that is precisely what you should try to avoid - in your startup as much as in a marriage.)

Like life-partners, co-founders need to know each other well, well enough to know that they will get along and that their skills and personalities complement each other. For this reason, it makes more sense to marry someone you've known a long time than someone you just met the other day in Vegas... You want to be a power couple in work or in marriage? It may be worth listening to Thiel on this one.

Moreover, to ensure that your foundation is strong, you need to have a clear understanding of the way power operates in your business. This means clearly distinguishing between ownership, possession, and control to avoid misalignment in your company. Each employee needs a specific responsibility and there ought to be no confusion around this.

Thiel cautions wannabe entrepreneurs about how easy it is for misalignment to filter into their organizations, advising against employing part-time employees or hiring consultants, with certain exceptions. He also advises against remote work, as it is far easier to misalign your purpose when each individual is working in a separate room. (Ah, pre-COVID bliss.) The main point is that you need to establish your company along a certain vision which is shared by all its founders and the team at large.

"Regardless of whether or not you seek professional peers, a band of brothers, a gang of rabble-rousers, a sisterhood, a press of soldiers, or even a pizza team of compatriots, you must trust the team. It's the fuel that powers collaborations to success." - Drew Marshall, Forbes

And it's crucial that the very first people you include in your team are people who are reliable, committed, and who share your vision.

Thiel discusses the power law, the basis for the idea of being 10x better than competitors, from the perspective of venture capitalists. But first he draws on nature to demonstrate this principle.

"The most destructive earthquakes are many times more powerful than all smaller earthquakes combined. The biggest cities dwarf all mere towns put together. And monopoly businesses capture more value than millions of undifferentiated competitors." - Peter Thiel

Put simply, startups aren't born equal - not even close. The accomplishments of a truly successful startup are exponentially greater than those of its competitors. For Thiel, this translates into some strange rules for venture capitalists, namely:

Perhaps you don't know a lot about venture capital. You wouldn't be the only one. And that doesn't seem so strange if you consider that less than 1% of new businesses started in the US each year receive venture-funding, and venture capital investments make up approximately 0.2% of the US GDP. However, did you know that 11% of private sector jobs in the US are created by venture capital? Or that they generate an annual revenue of around 21% of the GDP? The output of venture capital is disproportionate - much like the power law.

Okay, but if you're not a venture capitalist, why should you care? Well, when it comes down to it, everyone is an investor. You are investing in yourself, in your future, and, if you are an entrepreneur, then you are investing in your company's future too.

Even when you are still at school, it's worth considering where you focus your time and attention. Why study to be an all-rounder when you could focus on the things you are really good at and that will reap the most rewards further down the line? Think of your education as an investment.

"You should focus relentlessly on something you're good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future." - Peter Thiel

So, do what you are good at doing, but think long and hard before committing to starting your own company. Even the optimistic Thiel cautions against starting your own company. After all, he is in favour of optimism that's practical, backed by a plan, not optimism for optimism's sake.

Before starting your own company, consider the power law. Is your business likely to grow exponentially or would you be better off joining someone else's startup? This can be a difficult decision to make. How do you tell if you're an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur - someone who innovates from within a pre-existing organization? Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to ask yourself what you think about the mysteries of the world.

Where do ideas come from? That place of unknowing, wonder, and possibility: the secret. But are there any real secrets left? Any solvable secrets in any case? The Unabomber, described by the FBI as "a twisted genius who aspires to be the perfect, anonymous killer", claimed that the only problems left to be solved were either too easy or impossible. So what's the point of trying to solve anything in that case? Perhaps, he reasoned, it would be better to build untraceable bombs and deliver them to arbitrary targets, while living a reclusive life in the mountains.

"If everything worth doing has already been done, you may as well feign an allergy to achievement and become a barista." - Peter Thiel

Putting aside Thiel's strange scorn for baristas, the basic idea is that adventurous or entrepreneurial spirits can be deterred by the sense that there is nothing left to do or learn after all the discoveries of the past century. If we lack a sense of wonder at the world around us, how will we ever think up truly innovative ideas? And how will we ever be brave enough to risk being wrong about something or going against the grain when conventional life seems so safe, predictable, comfortable?

It seems as though we have become far more complacent and risk-averse than our predecessors. We've settled for incrementalism and homogeneity of talent rather than big leaps or the possibility of unique achievement, in part, because we think we've discovered so much already.

But, much as we have learnt over the centuries, it's arrogant to think we know everything that there is to know - and just plain wrong. Secrets still exist, both in the natural world and within people. Thiel differentiates between these two types of secrets, but ultimately, people are products of the natural world too. It's just that interpersonal or intra-personal secrets are often thought about as separate and lesser than the secrets of the ocean or outer-space. And a great company harnesses its own secrets to create something great for society.

"A great company is a conspiracy to change the world; when you share your secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator." - Peter Thiel

A company of the future is a company that's invested in secrets - in new and exciting possibilities that others couldn't imagine. Don't lose the sense of magic that the alchemists once had. Perhaps the secret you've uncovered is that they really were onto something with making gold out of metal; they were just using the wrong metals.

A final challenge to the world of startups - especially tech startups - is society's perception of technology. Much like the luddites who feared the arrival of industry or the railway line, people today still have a great deal of anxiety around new technologies - especially when it comes to AI and machine learning. There is a fear that humanity will be replaced by robots, but this isn't how we should see technology - a human creation. Rather, Thiel urges us to think of the areas in which computers can help us, the ways in which they complement our uniquely human skills, as can be seen in the latest digital trends.

"People have intentionality - we form plans and make decisions in complicated situations. We're less good at making sense of enormous amounts of data. Computers are exactly the opposite: they excel at efficient data processing, but they struggle to make basic judgements that would be simple for any human." - Peter Thiel

It's worthwhile making use of technology to save time and effort and then leverage that technology to get better results. As Thiel says,"Actionable insights can only come from a human analyst". It's worth using a financial tool like Syft to generate insights into your financial data and save you time on bookkeeping so that you can then do what no software can do - turn insights into powerful actions. Technology is designed to make life easier for humanity - not to replace us.

Finally, Thiel leaves the reader with 7 crucial questions your startup should be able to answer to know that it stands to chance of being successful. These are:

Does your business idea meet these requirements? And if not, what can you do to remedy the situation? Success doesn't just happen. It's up to the people behind it to work together, structure their power dynamics effectively, and work creatively to make progress. Startups aren't for everyone. But if you have the right skills, mindset, and passion, why not become a 21st-century alchemist?