The Hard Thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz seemed to me to be a more focused book, especially if you are reading it to find more about business and startups, Thiel's book is very good, but he tends to deviate from the main subject too much for me.
From what I read, Horowitz' book is very much about the typical VC fueled startup.
At this point in my life, I'm not interested in that except out of curiosity, I'd rather read books by/for/about boostrapped startups.
Where does Thiel's book fall in that range? Reading the comments, it looks like it's way more of an idea book than anything practical, and targetted at people who want to do something new and radical. Fair enough, but it looks like an entertainment read rather than anything applicable.
If you want to know about bootstrapping, then Thiel is not the guy to read. Zero to One is all about growth. And bootstrapping creates small businesses rather than startups (i.e. slower growth).
Slower growth does not necessarily imply smaller or less successful if you extend the time horizon beyond a few years. Data on this is probably hard to come by, but I'd guess also that this is especially true if you consider all the VC backed firms that simply die because they were not a raging success, and burned through all their cash.
Completely agree. I found Thiel's book very preachy and strange. Liked the lecture notes a lot more, because they were more detailed and thorough. The Hard Thing is the most depressing book about being a CEO, but that makes it refreshing and interesting to me.
