Zero to One_ Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future ( PDFDrive )

company, even if you are extraordinarily talented. If anything, too many people
are starting their own companies today. People who understand the power law
will hesitate more than others when it comes to founding a new venture: they
know how tremendously successful they could become by joining the very best
company while it’s growing fast. The power law means that differences between
companies will dwarf the differences in roles inside companies. You could have
100% of the equity if you fully fund your own venture, but if it fails you’ll have
100% of nothing. Owning just 0.01% of Google, by contrast, is incredibly
valuable (more than $35 million as of this writing).
If you do start your own company, you must remember the power law to
operate it well. The most important things are singular: One market will
probably be better than all others, as we discussed in Chapter 5. One distribution
strategy usually dominates all others, too—for that see Chapter 11. Time and
decision-making themselves follow a power law, and some moments matter far
more than others—see Chapter 9. However, you can’t trust a world that denies
the power law to accurately frame your decisions for you, so what’s most
important is rarely obvious. It might even be secret. But in a power law world,
you can’t afford not to think hard about where your actions will fall on the curve.