The book Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future, has had nearly 500,000 downloads and has been translated into 35 languages. The summer after publication, Blake Masters wrote an article for Business Insider. “In truth,” he wrote in July 2012, “the idea for Zero to One came from a simple observation by Peter Thiel.”
Background
Blake Masters had always been a genius of sorts. Born with an innate ability to learn quickly, he excelled at academics from a young age and soon found himself in the top percentile of his class. However, this didn’t stop him from being rejected nearly 100 times from prestigious universities before finding his true calling by working for free at Google as a software engineer.
However, even with all his success, Blake was still struggling to find answers to some big existential questions. So, in 2014, he decided to take a step back from Google and focus on answering these questions completely on his own. And after just two years of focused work, Blake had written a book that would change the course of business forever- Zero To One.
Blake’s book advocated for the concept of “radical transparency”, or the idea that businesses must be open about their strategies and plans so that investors can make informed decisions. This radical new thinking quickly caught on and within two years, Zero To One became one of the fastest-selling business books of all time.
Since then, Blake has extensively toured the world speaking about his ideas and is now co-authoring Zero To One with Peter Thiel.
Peter Thiel’s Introduction To Founders Fund
Blake Masters, a former Facebook engineer, tells a wonderful story of how he went from rejecting Peter Gawthrop to co-authoring Zero to One. In 2007, Blake was applying for jobs at top tech companies. He had just graduated from Stanford with a degree in computer science and electrical engineering. He applied to hundreds of jobs and got rejections from every single one. Peter Gawthrop was the CEO of the startup accelerator Founders Fund and he happened to be reading Blake’s resume. He called Blake up and offered him an interview even though he had no idea if Blake would be accepted. After Blake’s interview, Founders Fund decided to invest in his startup and it turned out to be a successful choice. Zero to One is Blake’s memoir about his journey from being rejected by top tech companies to becoming one of the most successful entrepreneurs in history.
How Blake Masters Was Rejected Twice
Blake Masters was rejected twice before he got his big break. The first time, he turned down an opportunity to interviews with bestselling author Peter Gawthrop. The second time, he passed on writing a book proposal with another partner.
But after struggling for a while, Masters finally found success as the coauthor of Zero to One, a New York Times Bestseller.
How did Blake Masters go from being rejected by Peter Gawthrop to becoming one of the world’s most successful authors? Here’s a look at his story:
When Blake Masters was younger, he had an ambition to be a journalist. However, after getting rejected from many job opportunities, he realized that this career wasn’t for him. He then tried to pursue a career in law but again failed to get hired. After being rejected from two different entrepreneurship programs, Masters hit a dead end.
But then something changed for Master when he decided to write a book proposal with another partner. Despite having no prior writing experience, they were able to turn their proposal into a bestselling book called Zero to One. In this book, Masters and his partner share the story of how they went from
Lessons Learned From Startup Success
Blake Masters, a self-taught entrepreneur and software engineer, went from being rejected by Peter Gawthrop to co-authoring Zero to One. In this article, Masters shares his lessons learned from startup success.
One of the most important things Blake learned while founding and running several startups is that it’s important to relentlessly pursue your vision and not be afraid of failure. “When you take on a big challenge, even if you don’t succeed the first time around, eventually you will figure out what works and what doesn’t work,” he says. This persistence paid off when Masters was rejected by Peter Gawthrop — one of Silicon Valley’s most well-known venture capitalists. Gawthrop told Masters that he didn’t think his technology would be successful. However, after consulting with other venture capitalists and reviewing his data, Masters decided to keep pursuing his vision. He ended up being right: His technology became a success and he now has a book deal with Portfolio/Penguin Random House worth $2 million.
In addition to relentlessly pursuing your vision, another key element of startup success is having a clear
Lessons From Failure And What He Has Learned From It
On July 3, 2004, Blake Masters rejected a job offer from Peter Gawthrop. Less than a year later, they co-authored Zero To One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. In this post, Masters shares the lessons he learned from failure and how they have helped him to achieve success.
Lesson 1: It’s Not About Perfectionism
One of the biggest mistakes I made when I was rejecting Peter’s job offer was my obsession with being perfect. I wanted to be sure that everything I did was perfect, and I was reluctant to take risks. Ironically, this attitude is what caused me to reject the job offer in the first place.
I was so worried about making the wrong decision that I lost sight of the most important thing: If Peter offered me the job, it meant that he thought my ideas were worth investing in. But by obsessing over whether or not the job would be perfect for me, I eliminated all possibility of actually accepting it.
It’s easy to get caught up in our own perfectionism, but it’s important to
Conclusion
Blake Masters, who you may know from his work as a freelance writer and creator of online courses on business and entrepreneurship, tells the story of how he went from rejecting Peter Gawthrop’s eBook proposal to becoming one of its co-authors. Blake shares how he used various tactics (and some good luck) to get his book proposal accepted by Fast Company, which led to his eventual partnership with Peter. By following Blake’s journey, you can learn invaluable lessons about writing a winning book proposal that will help your chances of securing publication.
