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In "Creativity Inc." (the book I'd recommend to anyone interested in managing people and teams, alongside "Peopleware") Ed Catmull argues that people are more i
by rimliu 9y ago
In "Creativity Inc." (the book I'd recommend
to anyone interested in managing people and teams, alongside "Peopleware") Ed Catmull argues that people are more important than ideals. His logic is this: if you give a good idea to the bad team they will screw it up. If you give a bad idea to the good team, they will either improve it, or come up with something better.
- danieltillett 9y agoYes a bad team will screw up a bad idea, but if it was as simple as just backing good people then VCs would just give a bunch of cash to a good team and tell them to go out and find something. YC tried this and it was a failure.
- rimliu 9y agoBad team can easily screw an good idea too.
- danieltillett 9y agoActually that is what I meant to say, but yes you are right :)
- ashraymalhotra 9y agoInterested to read more on the YC experiment where they gave money to just good teams and how was it a failure? Any references, please?
- hyperpallium 9y agoNot who you're replying to, but have a search on pg's essays on his site. What I took from it: if a team can't come up with an idea themselves and rally round it, there's something wrong with the team. It needn't be a very good idea. e.g. the reddit guys were excited about a delivery service idea (pet food? muffins? IDR). pg said no, and suggested the reddit/HN idea. But note that they had come up with an idea and rallied around it on their own. (Who knows, perhaps they would have made it work anyway?) Maybe it's a touch of mad passion/enthusiasm/optimism - not entirely rational - that is a key ingredient of an entrepreneurial team. Indicated by inventing and rallying round "some idea".