The future does not just happen; rather, it must be made, and starting a business is the most effective way to accomplish that.

In the words of Thiel, himself a billionaire co-founder of PayPal and Palantir as well as a Facebook investor and board member, a start-up is "the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future." Put another way, a start-up is an organization or business small enough to have direct exchange of ideas and be free from bureaucratic hell, but large enough to benefit from teamwork and multiple heads.

As Thiel and history show us, new technologies, and thus a society of increased wealth and opportunity, almost always originate in small organizations which are nimble and able to take risks. That ability to act is critical for what Thiel calls going from 0 to 1.