E Preface ZERO TO ONE V ER Y M O M E N T I N B U SI N E SS h a p p e n s o n ly o n c e . T h e n e x t B il l G a t e s w i ll n o t b u i l d an o p er a ti n g s y s t e m . T h e n e x t L a r r y P a g e o r S e rg e y B r in w o n ’ t m a k e a s e a r c h engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them. Of course, it’s easier to copy a model than to make something new. Doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1. The act of creation is singular, as is the moment of creation, and the result is something fresh and strange.