Chapter Four- The Idealogy Of Competition

Creative monopoly means products that benefit everybody and sustainable profits for the creator and competition means no profit for anybody. So why is competition believed to be healthy? Competition is an ideology that shapes our thinking, even though when we compete more, we gain less. We have been trained to ignore it.

War is a costly business. People get competitive with their rivals and lose sight of the important goals. Take Microsoft and google for example, they battle each other because they are similar. Rivalry causes us to overemphasize old opportunities and slavishly copy what has worked in the past. Competiton can make people hallucinate opportunities when none exist.

In the words of Peter Thiel, “If you can’t beat a rival, it may be better to merge. Sometimes you have to fight. You have to fight and win, there is no middle ground. Either don’t throw any punches or strike hard and end it quickly”. This advice is hard to follow as pride and honor can get in the way. This logic is a part of human nature but disastrous from a business point of view. You need to recognize competition as a destructive force rather than a sign of value