Zero to Oneはdisruptionに反対

Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (2014/09/16) Peter Thiel、Blake Masters 他 商品詳細を見る

Zero to Oneを図書館から借りて読み始めてみました。ゼロから生み出すことの難しさを語ることは素晴らしいと思うのですが、Googleが突然ゼロからすごいことを始めたというのはちょっと違和感を感じてしまします。当時検索サイトはすでにいくつかありましたらねえ。単なる都合の悪いことを捨象した自画自賛本になっていないか気をつけて読みたいと思います。

このブログでdisruptorについて取り上げましたが、この著者はDisruptionをdisruption has recently transmogrified into a self‐congratulatory buzzword for anything posing as trendy and new.と批判的に捉えています。確かに自分がStart-up企業だったら気をつけて行動した方がよさそうですね。

Don’t disrupt
Silicon Valley has become obsessed with “disruption.” Originally, “disruption” was a term of art to describe how a firm can use new technology to introduce a low‐end product at low prices, improve the product over time, and eventually overtake even the premium products offered by incumbent companies using older technology. This is roughly what happened when the advent of PCs disrupted the market for mainframe computers: at first PCs seemed irrelevant, then they became dominant. Today mobile devices may be doing the same thing to PCs.

However, disruption has recently transmogrified into a self‐congratulatory buzzword for anything posing as trendy and new. This seemingly trivial fad matters because it dis‐ torts an entrepreneur’s self‐understanding in an inherently competitive way. The concept was coined to describe threats to incumbent companies, so startups’ obsession with disruption means they see themselves through older firms’ eyes. If you think of yourself as an insurgent battling dark forces, it’s easy to become unduly fixated on the obstacles in your path. But if you truly want to make something new, the act of creation is far more important than the old industries that might not like what you create. Indeed, if your company can be summed up by its opposition to already existing firms, it can’t be completely new and it’s probably not going to be‐ come a monopoly.

適度に教養的なことを混ぜているのも人気が出ている要因の一つでしょうか。例えば、3章のタイトル All Happy Companies Are Differentなんかはすぐにトルストイを意識しているとわかりますね。

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

それに以下のハムレットなんかも引用していました。日本語は河合先生の本からです。

Act 4 Scene 4
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that fortune, death, and danger dare,
Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great
Is not to stir without great argument,
But greatly to find quarrel in a straw
When honor’s at the stake.

儚き命も将来も、運命と死の危険に
曝そうとしているのだ。それも
卵の殻ほどの問題のために！　真の偉大さとは、
大義がなければ微動だにしないが、
名誉が関わるとなれば、たとえ藁しべ一本のためにも、
命をかけて立ち上がることだ。

といっても批判的に取り上げています。。。

For Hamlet, greatness means willingness to fight for reasons as thin as an eggshell: anyone would fight for things that matter; true heroes take their personal honor so seriously they will fight for things that don’t matter. This twisted logic is part of human nature, but it’s disastrous in business. If you can recognize competition as a destructive force instead of a sign of value, you’re already more sane than most.

ビジネス書はとっても読みやすいですから、こういうのから入るのはオススメです。