A short and concise book that outlines Thiel's advice for startups, interspersed with his often "contrarian" take on things. I found one of his key heuristics—that capitalism benefits most from monopoly, rather than competition—to be insightful.

Thiel touches on education at a few points, and unsurprisingly, given that this is the guy who started a fellowship that pays students to drop out of college to begin startups, his view of our public education system is not positive. I think this is where his worldview benefits from some pushback on nuance -- going from 0 to 1 is great for technology and innovative businesses, but going from 1 to n is great for public education. Incremental change is where schools will benefit the most--aside from invasive technological advances such as lights or electrical inputs inserted into our brains, or possibly the introduction and use of VR and gaming into lessons--I don't see how we can make any sudden transformative leaps in boosting IQ and knowledge of the world.

Furthermore, his acknowledgement that capitalism pairs well with monopoly supports the function and involvement of the state in institutions such as education. A state has a monopoly!

But I will say that Thiel's contrarianism got me thinking about how I might rethink approaching special education services, given all the red tape. Solutions might lie more in the direction of Uber than in IEPs . . . Food for thought, and perhaps, one day, a startup.