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Here's a better test: if you listen to people who tell you what you can't do you probably won't be a good founder.

by samd 17y ago

sthomps 17y ago
true.
hga 17y ago
What do you do when a programmer tells you "this can't be done" (perhaps "... with these resources", including time)? You're sure to find many others who say "no big problem!" Which do you believe? The wrong answer can be very expensive either way. There's a reason why very few '7-80s superminicomputer companies survived the advent of multiprocessors and trying to get their operating system(s) to work reliably with them. In that case, it was "this will be hard" vs. "not too hard". In most cases, the B team got the nod, and all was well ... until customers with machines in the field started complaining how their shiny new systems would sporadically crash. And the B team couldn't find the problems (or at least very quickly), since among other things they hadn't invested enough in instrumentation and so on. Some companies were lucky enough to get a chance to hire third team who could do it, but I think in most if not all of those cases the company was too injured and too late with a good solution to survive. ADDED: I should probably qualify this with "it depends a lot on how hard the problem is". I'm used to the domain of hard technical problems because that's mostly how I made my living before retiring. And one advantage of them is the barrier to entry they pose to competitors. After all, we're here because the problem of developing a really good (easy to use and so on) web shop development system is hard, something where using secret alien technology (http://lispers.org/ http://lispers.org/) can make a big difference, and did.
- samd 17y ago
  There's a difference between asking someone else to do something and doing it yourself. Don't listen to people who tell you what you can't do.
  - hga 17y ago
    Do you mean what "you can't do" as "you are not capable of this but others are/might be"? Yeah, that has much less weight, although you might want to drill down and see why they have that opinion. E.g. Edison could not do in a practical way electronic distribution because he didn't have the math (calculus) needed for polyphase AC, which is why we're all using Tesla's inventions (with a modern special case exception of very high voltage DC interconnect lines). I.e. a "you can't do this unless and until you master X" is worth listening to. On the other hand, the founder of Motorola didn't know or pay attention to the conventional wisdom that coils? (inductors) had to be big, so he went ahead and made the first really practical car radios.

Here's a better test: if you listen to people who tell you what you can't do you probably won't be a good founder.

by samd 17y ago

Here's a better test: if you listen to people who tell you what you can't do you probably won't be a good founder.

sthomps 17y ago

true.

hga 17y ago

What do you do when a programmer tells you "this can't be done" (perhaps "... with these resources", including time)? You're sure to find many others who say "no big problem!" Which do you believe? The wrong answer can be very expensive either way. There's a reason why very few '7-80s superminicomputer companies survived the advent of multiprocessors and trying to get their operating system(s) to work reliably with them. In that case, it was "this will be hard" vs. "not too hard". In most cases, the B team got the nod, and all was well ... until customers with machines in the field started complaining how their shiny new systems would sporadically crash. And the B team couldn't find the problems (or at least very quickly), since among other things they hadn't invested enough in instrumentation and so on. Some companies were lucky enough to get a chance to hire third team who could do it, but I think in most if not all of those cases the company was too injured and too late with a good solution to survive. ADDED: I should probably qualify this with "it depends a lot on how hard the problem is". I'm used to the domain of hard technical problems because that's mostly how I made my living before retiring. And one advantage of them is the barrier to entry they pose to competitors. After all, we're here because the problem of developing a really good (easy to use and so on) web shop development system is hard, something where using secret alien technology (http://lispers.org/ http://lispers.org/) can make a big difference, and did.

samd 17y ago
There's a difference between asking someone else to do something and doing it yourself. Don't listen to people who tell you what you can't do.
- hga 17y ago
  Do you mean what "you can't do" as "you are not capable of this but others are/might be"? Yeah, that has much less weight, although you might want to drill down and see why they have that opinion. E.g. Edison could not do in a practical way electronic distribution because he didn't have the math (calculus) needed for polyphase AC, which is why we're all using Tesla's inventions (with a modern special case exception of very high voltage DC interconnect lines). I.e. a "you can't do this unless and until you master X" is worth listening to. On the other hand, the founder of Motorola didn't know or pay attention to the conventional wisdom that coils? (inductors) had to be big, so he went ahead and made the first really practical car radios.