── ── Decision frameworks
We Turned Zero to One Into Six Executable Agent Skills
July 17, 2026 · 7 min read
Peter Thiel's Zero to One frameworks — the contrarian question, monopoly vs competition, secrets, definite optimism, last-mover advantage, and the seven questions test — turned into six executable, gated agent skills. Free and open source, released one per day.
Zero to One (Thiel & Masters, 2014) is the most recommended startup book of the last decade — and one of the least operationalized. Founders quote "competition is for losers" and then walk into a competed market with a pitch deck claiming four moats they don't have. The frameworks are sound; what's missing is a process that forces you to actually run them, with gates you can't talk your way past. So we built that: six of the book's core frameworks as executable agent skills, releasing one per day this week. Free, MIT-licensed, and the same skills deciqAI's agents run.
Why executable beats memorable
A framework you remember is a vibe. A framework your agent runs is a gate: it demands written answers, scores them against evidence, and refuses to advance when the answer is consensus wearing an edgy costume. Every skill below has that shape — a named process, hard stops, a table of the rationalizations people use to fake it, and verification checks at the end.
The six skills and their release days
| Day | Skill | The question it forces |
|---|---|---|
| Jul 17 | The Contrarian Question | What important truth do very few people agree with you on — and can you defend it with evidence? |
| Jul 18 | Monopoly vs Competition | Which of the four monopoly traits do you honestly have, once your market definition stops lying? |
| Jul 19 | Secrets | What valuable truth is knowable but unknown — and why is nobody else looking where you're looking? |
| Jul 20 | Definite Optimism | Do your calendar and capital allocation match a concrete plan for a better future, or an option portfolio? |
| Jul 21 | Last-Mover Advantage | Will this position still matter in 10–20 years — and are you playing the endgame or the opening? |
| Jul 22 | The Seven Questions Test | Engineering, timing, monopoly, people, distribution, durability, secret — can you answer all seven in writing? |
Each skill goes live on its day at deciqai.com/skills — the hub lists everything currently released. Day one is live now: the contrarian question.
What a gated process looks like
Take the contrarian question. Thiel's interview question sounds simple, but almost every answer fails one of two gates: it's either consensus restated with attitude (fails non-consensus) or contrarian without evidence (fails defensibility). The skill runs both gates explicitly — your answer has to name who disagrees and survive the evidence check. Airbnb's 2008 thesis passed both: 'strangers will pay to sleep in strangers' homes' was laughed at by investors and backed by couch-surfing data. Most theses don't.
Install all 227 skills
npx skills add deciqAI/knowledge-skills — the Zero to One six join the collection as they release. Each skill is a self-contained SKILL.md your agent (Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and others) picks up automatically.
How the six compose
They're designed as one pipeline: the contrarian question finds the non-consensus claim → secrets locates where such claims hide → monopoly vs competition audits whether the position escapes competition → definite optimism converts the claim into a committed plan → last-mover advantage tests the endgame → the seven questions test is the final gate before you commit capital. Run in sequence, they're roughly Thiel's due-diligence stack — which is why we shipped them as a series rather than a dump.
Why we're giving them away
These six join our 227 open-source thinking skills. The static frameworks are free because reasoning methods should be; deciqAI's product is what happens when agents run them autonomously against your live business data — monitoring, deciding, executing. The skills are how our agents think. The company is what they do.
FAQ
What are the six Zero to One skills?
The contrarian question, monopoly vs competition, secrets, definite optimism, last-mover advantage, and the seven questions test — each an executable, gated agent skill derived from Thiel & Masters' Zero to One (2014), released one per day from July 17 to July 22, 2026.
Are the skills free?
Yes — MIT-licensed and open source at github.com/deciqAI/knowledge-skills, installable with npx skills add deciqAI/knowledge-skills. They work with Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and other agent harnesses.
What does 'executable skill' mean?
Instead of a summary to remember, each skill is a step-by-step process an AI agent runs: named stages, hard gates that demand written evidence, a table of common rationalizations, and verification checks — so the framework gets applied, not just quoted.
What is the seven questions test?
Thiel's end-of-book checklist: every business must answer seven questions — engineering, timing, monopoly, people, distribution, durability, and secret. His calibration: all seven answered well predicts a monopoly; five or six might work; fewer predicts failure that will later be blamed on luck.