What an amazing story... this is the first I've read of it. It doesn't much to do with my argument, though. Even though I haven't talked about this much here, I

What an amazing story... this is the first I've read of it. It doesn't much to do with my argument, though. Even though I haven't talked about this much here, I personally believe that persistence is one of the most important ingredients in doing anything important. But it's not a holy grail to be worshiped at all costs. You can't make a general rule called "never give up" if "giving up" means ceasing the cooperation of a team for a particular purpose. That would be a stupid rule; it would lead to all sorts of irrational results. Imagine a VC firm that decided to never give up on any of its startups, ever. That sort of policy would fly in the face of all general knowledge about how the world of startups work. Offering an anecdotal example is very problematic. What about all the other folks who were working on making blue LEDs whose, inventions had no chance of competing with Nakamura's? Because of the survivorship bias, we don't hear about them, yet they are just as important to understanding the dynamics of reality. After his invention was released, are they supposed to continue on the same path? Of course not. It doesn't mean they give up on life, or on themselves, but it does mean that they give up on a mission that they had committed themselves to for some period of time. I'd never say that a founder should listen blindly to colleagues, and certainly not to me(!), in deciding whether it's worth continuing. These are complex decisions that need to be made carefully. In short, Success requires persistence, but persistence does not imply success. Most stories of success will be stories of persistence, but not all stories of persistence will lead to success. And many stories of success will include "giving up" on previous projects/companies before finding success in a new one.