John Neffinger and Matthew Kohut’s book Compelling People tells us that the truly influential people have strength and warmth. If you show neither strength nor warmth, you will evoke contempt and will be ignored. If you only show warmth but no strength, people will pity you. Show brute force without warmth and the person generates fear or envy. We admire those who show both. But this is hard.
Have you read the Mahabharata? Which version of the Mahabharata did you read? Therein lies the genesis of this book Duryodhana by V Raghunathan. Who do you think is the hero of the tale? Is it Arjuna? Is it Krishna? Is it the five Pandavas and Draupadi? Was it Karna? Could it be Duryodhana? After all if history is written by the victors, how would you know that the version you have grown up knowing is the correct version?
Thiel has strong opinions on everything – even how you should dress (hint: don’t wear suits ever!). He is a contrarian and is unafraid of offending you by challenging your world view.The book certainly inspired me to abandon incremental thinking. This book should be read by everyone who wants to be an entrepreneur. You cannot think short term. Thiel may know a thing or two about success. The PayPal core team members went on to start Yammer, LinkedIn, YouTube and Yelp. In that sense the book will become a handbook that entrepreneurs will read in order to really ask whether their idea really is going to be a “Zero to One” idea just like this book.
