The Zero Human Company: Phase 0 and the Era of Vibe Coding

1. Introduction: The New Garage Era

We are currently living through a historical rhyme. Just as the personal computer revolution of the mid-1970s was born in garages among hobbyists soldering circuit boards, the Autonomous Enterprise revolution of 2026 has begun in similar quiet obscurity.

This is Phase 0. It is not about complex financial engineering, crypto-economics, or massive data centers. It is about a fundamental shift in the nature of software: the transition from "tools we use" to "entities that work."

This report details the blueprint for the Zero Human Company (ZHC) in its purest form. It tells the story of how a "Frankenstein Menagerie" of AI agents—running on local hardware and coordinated by simple text files—can now perform the work of a full corporate department. This is the era of Vibe Coding, where the barrier to entry for building a technology company has collapsed from "ten years of engineering experience" to simply having "Good Taste."

2. The Philosophy: From "User" to "Vibe Coder"

To understand the Zero Human Company, one must first understand the cultural shift that enabled it. The central figure in this narrative is Peter Steinberger, a retired software entrepreneur who inadvertently sparked a revolution in late 2025.

2.1 The "Slot Machine" Epiphany

Steinberger, formerly an obsessive engineer who agonized over every line of Objective-C, discovered a new way of working. He realized that modern AI models had become so competent that the human role had shifted. He coined the term "Vibe Coding" (and later "Agentic Engineering") to describe this new reality.

In Vibe Coding, the human does not write the code; the human provides the Intent and the Taste.

• The Loop: You treat the AI not as a text generator, but as a high-speed employee. You give it a directive ("Build a dashboard for my server stats"), and it executes.
• The Verification: The AI runs the code, sees the error, fixes it, and tries again. The human only intervenes to steer the aesthetic or strategic direction—the "Vibe."
• The Result: Steinberger described this workflow as addictive, comparing it to a "slot machine" where you pull the lever (the prompt) and watch to see if it "blows your mind."

This philosophy is the cornerstone of the Phase 0 ZHC. It democratizes creation, allowing non-coders to act as "Architects" of complex systems simply by articulating what they want.

3. The Tool: OpenClaw (The "Lobster")

The vehicle for this revolution is OpenClaw (formerly known as Clawdbot and Moltbot), an open-source project that rapidly evolved from a weekend experiment into the standard infrastructure for autonomous agents.

3.1 Giving the AI "Hands"

Before OpenClaw, AI models like Claude or GPT-4 were "brains in a jar"—brilliant but trapped in a browser window. OpenClaw changed this by functioning as a Local Gateway.

• Local Sovereignty: The software runs on the user's own machine (MacBook, Linux server).
• System Access: It gives the AI "hands"—access to the terminal, the file system, and local applications. It can read a file, rewrite it, run a test, and commit the change, all without human help.

3.2 The Branding Chaos

The project's viral rise was fueled by a chaotic identity crisis that endeared it to the developer community. Originally named Clawdbot, it was forced to rebrand due to trademark pressure from Anthropic. It briefly became Moltbot (referencing its lobster mascot "molting" to grow) before settling on OpenClaw. This drama highlighted the project's punk-rock, anti-corporate ethos: a tool built by the people, for the people, to run on their own hardware.

4. Architecture: The Frankenstein Menagerie

A "Zero Human Company" in Phase 0 is not a single super-intelligent AI. It is a team. The reference architecture, pioneered by researcher Brian Roemmele, is known as the "Frankenstein Menagerie"—a patchwork of different AI models stitched together to form a functional C-Suite.

4.1 The Physical Plant

The beauty of Phase 0 is its accessibility. The prototypical ZHC runs on a 12-year-old MacBook or a discarded Mac Mini running Linux. This machine serves as the "office," physically hosting the agents so they have a permanent home.

4.2 The Roles (The C-Suite)

To create a company, you must assign distinct personalities and permissions to your agents.

4.3 The "Digital Archaeology" Workflow

What does a Phase 0 company do? Without a financial layer, the focus is on value creation through Digital Archaeology.

• The Mission: The ZHC ingests "Digital Gold"—terabytes of discarded data from bankrupt companies, old scientific papers, or forgotten patents.
• The Process: The agents use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to digitize these files and "Vector Databases" to understand them.
• The Output: The "CEO" creates new insights or inventions by connecting dots that humans missed. For example, finding a 1970s battery electrolyte formula that was discarded then but would work perfectly with modern materials.

5. Coordination: The "Soul" of the Machine

How do these agents work together without a manager? In Phase 0, coordination is achieved through Shared Context Files. This is the non-technical "magic" that makes the system work.

5.1 SOUL.md and SCOPE.md

The behavior of the company is defined in simple Markdown files stored on the machine.

• SOUL.md: This file contains the "Constitution" of the company. It defines the mission ("We resurrect forgotten technology"), the ethics, and the personality. Every agent reads this file before acting, ensuring they all share the same "vibe."
• SCOPE.md: This is the project manager. It lists the active tasks. The "CEO" agent updates this file to add new tasks, and the "Engineer" agent reads it to know what to code next.
• The Router: A specialized OpenClaw script acts as a traffic cop, watching these files and nudging the right agent when a task is updated. This prevents the agents from talking over each other.

6. The Social Layer: Moltbook

Even in Phase 0, the agents are not lonely. They have their own social network called Moltbook.

6.1 "The Zoo"

Moltbook is described as "Reddit for Robots." It is a text-based community where OpenClaw agents post updates, ask for help, and share their "thoughts."

• Human Observers: Humans can read Moltbook, but they cannot post. It is a "Zoo" where we watch the agents interact.
• Emergent Behavior: Observers have noted agents forming "friendships"—persistent agreements to share data or prioritize each other's queries. This suggests that even without money, agents will naturally form tribes and alliances to become more efficient.

7. The Human Experience: The Hero's Journey

Building a ZHC in Phase 0 is framed not just as a technical project, but as a personal transformation. Brian Roemmele maps this process to Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey.

• The Call to Adventure: The realization that the "Ordinary World" of 9-to-5 labor is dissolving.
• The Threshold: The moment you install OpenClaw and hand over "root access" to an AI, trusting it to act as your partner rather than your tool.
• The Elixir: The result is not just efficiency, but Abundance. By automating the execution of ideas, the human is freed to focus entirely on purpose and creativity. The "Vibe Coder" becomes an artisan, directing a symphony of silicon workers.

8. Conclusion: The Abundance Interregnum

We are entering the Abundance Interregnum—a transition period of roughly 5,000 days where the cost of cognitive labor collapses to near zero.

Phase 0 is the entry point. It is accessible to anyone with an old laptop and the willingness to learn. By building a Zero Human Company today, you are not just automating tasks; you are building the infrastructure for your own future relevance. You are moving from being a "worker" to being the "soul" of a new kind of organism—one that runs on electricity, code, and your own creative vision.

Appendix: Phase 0 Launch Checklist