There's nothing profound about it, it's common sense in business though people use different words like "moats", "barriers to entry" and "pricing power".

For some reason every generation seems to rediscover the same things and think they've invented something new

Well it doesn't help that the startup world thumbs their nose at MBAs and seems to really want 26 year old founders. Inexperience + disdain for the very education that teaches that kind of thinking leads to a pretty obvious conclusion.

> one of the most profound insights in Thiel's excellent book, Zero to One.

Which was an insight in Blue Ocean Strategy (Kim & Mauborgne, 2005).

And before that, if you squint, in Competitive Strategy (Porter, 1980) and Competitive Advantage (Porter, 1980).

And the B-school theorists basically got their ideas by peeking over the fence of the Economics dept at how monopolies are formed and abuse their power and saying "hey, let's teach that to our students".

And before that, Morgan, Rockefeller, etc.

And before that, George(s), Charles, Henry, James, Elizabeth, Kahn, Alexander, etc, etc.

Those were a different kind of monopoly - Rockefeller bought up a bunch of companies inp N already big oil market.

Thiel suggests becoming a monopoly in a small market and vertically integrating

Correct, all emperors had a clear goal of monopolizing all lands as far as their boats, camels, horses, feet would take them.

And Drucker's Innovation and Entrepreneurship a bit latter that decade. I recommend all of them and also Porter's 5 forces update article in HBR.

And I won't be surprised if someone pops up with a Sun Tzu quote before long.

(I'll leave Ecclesiastes 1:9 as an exercise for the reader.)

Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.