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> Woz: Don had come to the garage and I ran the Apple II through its paces and he said, “What is the market?” I said, “A million units.” He asked me why that wa
by vonnik 11y ago
> Woz: Don had come to the garage and I ran the Apple II through its paces and he said, “What is the market?” I said, “A million units.” He asked me why that was and I sad, “There’s a million ham radio operators and computers are bigger than ham radio.”
http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2011/10/11/a-conversation-with-woz/ http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2011/10/11/a-conversation-w...
- ars 11y agoHe's not saying you can't figure out a market size. He said if the market size is not immediately obvious then you can't figure out market size. It's not the same thing.
- viola11 11y agoNo, in the highlighted section he is explicitly saying you can't figure out how big the market is by reasoning and the best you can do is guess. In fact, it is a bit stronger than that: he states that the only knowledge that can be used is instinctual knowledge, but since instincts concerns things like what smells indicate spoiled food and legless that animals are dangerous, you don't have any relevant knowledge at all! The best you can do is baseless guessing, though after having gotten funding and done a bit of work you might have some basis for your estimate (there is a caveat that instincts dominate estimates early in the start up process). The summary ars provides does seem to be what he strove to say, but since two people can easily disagree on what is to be considered "obvious" even that statement allows for less predictive power that seems reasonable.