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>I think founders often have extraordinary skill I think that was Aaron's point. Daniel is an extraordinary person. An ordinary person would probably have ju

• jganetsk 16y ago
  I certainly can't disagree with your viewpoint. A person with extraordinary characteristics is likely to have extraordinary accomplishments. That's a pretty safe argument. But, your classification of people into 2 simple categories is exactly the kind of discussion I like to avoid. From the story, I see a person with skill, confidence, and good odds of success. Aaron's description is one of people with willpower and perseverance in the face of almost impossible odds. These are two completely orthogonal issues. It may be that Daniel is all of the above. But, as a community, we should have more sophisticated dialog on what makes folks successful. If I were to ever start a company on my own, it would be with the knowledge that I have only half of the traits touted around here. I'm more interested, at this point, in the shortcomings of successful founders and how they compensated.
  • gentschev 16y ago
    To me, the most important point is that even extraordinary people face many times in the development of their companies where things look very dim. Being able to ignore that feeling and keep working and changing your assumptions and approaches is at least as rare as more definable talents. There are a lot of very talented people who are actually less resilient to hardship because they're not as used to being tested or failing as people with supposedly lesser abilities.