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Occam's razor applies. I think there is a much simpler explanation of why your examples are able to "disrupt" the industries you cite -- those founders felt "wi

by sah2ed 9y ago

Occam's razor applies. I think there is a much simpler explanation of why your examples are able to "disrupt" the industries you cite -- those founders felt "with the advances made by mankind, this kind of business idea should exist" then they go out to build such a business and with some luck, they manage to succeed. For every successful Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, there are several competitors (e.g Jean-Louis Gassée/BeOS, Jonathan Bulkeley/B&N and Shai Agassi/Better Place respectively) who failed. Building a successful business like Apple, Amazon or Tesla is much much harder than you are admitting. Programming ability will only get you so far before the unavoidable laws of economics strikes home.

peoplewindow 9y ago
BeOS was trying to disrupt the operating system market, so he was up against other programmers on their home turf. That example doesn't refute my thesis. I hadn't heard of Shai Agassi before. He seems a better counter-example, although from his Wikipedia page it sounds like he went from getting a BSc in CS directly into 'entrepreneurship' and holding executive positions at various firms. I don't see anything in the way of an actual career writing software first, like Bezos had, not even a few years. Jonathan Bulkeley doesn't have a Wikipedia page but from what I found he has a BA from Yale and never really tried to disrupt anything? Maybe I am missing something about his story. Of course building a business is hard. I'm doing it at the moment so I'm well aware of that! I am not suggesting that merely knowing programming magically grants guaranteed success. But when you look at the type of people who are disrupting whole industries, at least in the sense the word is used, it invariably seems to be entrepreneurs who had some grasp of software or hardware engineering first.
- sah2ed 9y ago
  Some links on Jonathan Bulkeley's time at B&N: Joined: https://www.cnet.com/news/short-take-barnes-noble-names-new-online-ceo/ https://www.cnet.com/news/short-take-barnes-noble-names-new-... IPO: https://nypost.com/1999/05/26/not-one-for-the-books-bn-com-has-respectable-not-stellar-ipo/ https://nypost.com/1999/05/26/not-one-for-the-books-bn-com-h... Resigned: https://www.ourmidland.com/news/amp/Barnes-Noble-com-Names-New-CEO-7058015.php https://www.ourmidland.com/news/amp/Barnes-Noble-com-Names-N...

by sah2ed 9y ago

peoplewindow 9y ago

BeOS was trying to disrupt the operating system market, so he was up against other programmers on their home turf. That example doesn't refute my thesis. I hadn't heard of Shai Agassi before. He seems a better counter-example, although from his Wikipedia page it sounds like he went from getting a BSc in CS directly into 'entrepreneurship' and holding executive positions at various firms. I don't see anything in the way of an actual career writing software first, like Bezos had, not even a few years. Jonathan Bulkeley doesn't have a Wikipedia page but from what I found he has a BA from Yale and never really tried to disrupt anything? Maybe I am missing something about his story. Of course building a business is hard. I'm doing it at the moment so I'm well aware of that! I am not suggesting that merely knowing programming magically grants guaranteed success. But when you look at the type of people who are disrupting whole industries, at least in the sense the word is used, it invariably seems to be entrepreneurs who had some grasp of software or hardware engineering first.

sah2ed 9y ago
Some links on Jonathan Bulkeley's time at B&N: Joined: https://www.cnet.com/news/short-take-barnes-noble-names-new-online-ceo/ https://www.cnet.com/news/short-take-barnes-noble-names-new-... IPO: https://nypost.com/1999/05/26/not-one-for-the-books-bn-com-has-respectable-not-stellar-ipo/ https://nypost.com/1999/05/26/not-one-for-the-books-bn-com-h... Resigned: https://www.ourmidland.com/news/amp/Barnes-Noble-com-Names-New-CEO-7058015.php https://www.ourmidland.com/news/amp/Barnes-Noble-com-Names-N...