New Delhi, Oct. 28 -- Peter Thiel's Stanford startup class in 2012 inspired Zero to One. Blake Masters' notes became the book, published in 2014. Its central message is simple: create something new instead of copying existing businesses. These 5 lessons explain how founders can approach that challenge.

A few successful businesses can produce returns much larger than those of others combined. Founders Fund's Facebook investment clearly showed this pattern. It returned more than all the fund's other investments together.

Thiel advises investors to choose companies capable of returning an entire fund. For founders, the message is about focus. You cannot manage several companies or careers together. Choose something that could matter, then ...