4 ms·

I agree with the general gist of this, however the crux is that most ideas that turn out to be revolutionary just don't originate within the accepted circle of

by rsp1984 5y ago

I agree with the general gist of this, however the crux is that most ideas that turn out to be revolutionary just don't originate within the accepted circle of domain experts, exactly because being a domain expert makes you more unlikely to think out of the box. Google didn't come out of Yahoo. Napster wasn't founded by music industry execs. Friendster didn't evolve into Facebook. Match.com didn't invent Tinder. It's often the curious outsiders that disrupt the status quo, not the well connected insiders.

jacquesm 5y ago
Those are all excellent examples of the main reason why innovation can not be done in established businesses: the fear of cannibalizing the cash cow will stifle any real innovation.
- gustavo-fring 5y ago
  Was the Playstation not revolutionary?
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    I don't think so, at least not in any technical aspect. Pretty much everything about the tech was a logical extension of industry trends. It began life as a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES similar to Sega's SegaCD for the Genesis/MegaDrive. Outside the technology, the low license cost and relative ease of developing for it built a sizeable and varied library of games, which I think was a major contributor to its success, but neither of those things strike me as particularly revolutionary.
- kolinko 5y ago
  Bell Labs is a counterexample to what you said. It developed the first transistor, photovoltaic cell, fiberiptic, lasers, cctv and some other things. Oh, and cellphones of course. Ditto Xerox Parc and modern user interfaces, ethernet and and laser printers.
  - ta988 5y ago
    Agreed, it wiuld be more accurate to say it is not possible in companies that are optimizing finances short-term. Bell invested a ton of money with the hope it would bring results long term. I have yet to see a company's board authorizing that now...
taurath 5y ago
It’s also just as often someone who’s worked in an industry for a while and has a bunch of good ideas from understanding the problems. We put the college kids making big companies on a pedestal but most startups are from people who know the domain. You won’t find a revolutionary import/export company that doesn’t have some knowledge about the logistics industry. But you are more likely to be paying attention to new technologies as they emerge that might allow you to come up with the revolutionary ideas. I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older I’ve stopped spending my time fiddling with all my devices. As a result I’m less likely to realize when something new and exciting might be within reach, until it hits a higher point on the bell curve of maturity.
phenkdo 5y ago
However, for everyone of those examples there are many counter-examples: Intel came out of Shockley, ex-IBMers went onto found several other companies (SAP, Peoplesoft,...)... So Im skeptical of this outsider/insider characterization, IMHO it's almost always the individuals.
- enumjorge 5y ago
  Yeah this feels like an example of a narrative that sounds compelling but could easily be overstated. How many breakthrough innovations have “insiders” made that aren’t as noteworthy because they are more expected? Google was given as an example by the parent comment. Google also made a lot of breakthrough innovations in the distributed systems and browsers space after their outsiders phase.
- adrianmsmith 5y ago
  I agree. The iPhone is the perfect counter-example to this narrative: perhaps one of the most revolutionary pieces of hardware or software in the last 20 years, it came out of Apple, an established company at the time.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>Google didn't come out of Yahoo. from my reading of the history of Yahoo they had plenty of good ideas that they destroyed because the problem was not domain experts but thinking they were in the wrong business (media!)
shoto_io 5y ago
I agree 100%. The list could be continued indefinitely. Less positively formulated, you could also say people outside an industry are naïve enough to start something people inside would deem impossible.
Putshort 5y ago
You could also look at the list of Google's failures.
hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
Why are all your examples software companies? Certainly not because most of the world's revolutionary ideas are from programmers. Perhaps there are benefits to domain knowledge for coming up with revolutionary ideas in, say, biology or chemistry or electrical engineering or literature or political science or manufacturing or medicine...
pilingual 5y ago
I'm curious to see a list of world-changing ideas that came out of domain expertise and those that the essay claims could be dismissed because the person was not an expert. AirBnB, which is perhaps pg's favorite company, would never have gotten into Y Combinator without Michael Seibel and the endorsement of the JTV crew. AirBnB simply would not exist today. So I hope people don't read this essay and think, "I'm not a domain expert, so I'll give up on this idea." Somewhat of a dangerous essay for that reason.
- ZephyrBlu 5y ago
  I'd argue that for unique companies like AirBnB the founders become domain experts while they're building the company.
  - marvin 5y ago
    I figured that was subtext, and that we're not necessarily talking about what a hotel executive would think.
matt_s 5y ago
I don't think pg intended that crazy new ideas require someone to be a domain expert, just some expertise. Slight wording difference. In the case of music, one could have domain expertise on audio files, compression and domain expertise about file sharing and domain expertise about younger people's listening habits. That's just having some insights into the domain, several as is the case with Napster. Music industry execs in those days probably had domain expertise on contract law, revenue sharing models, marketing and didn't have a clue about file sharing or audio compression. Also want to mention the examples you mention seem to have not much "newness" to them to be "crazy new" in my opinion. When I think of "crazy new" ideas, I think of things like stuff that came out of PARC in the 60's. If you go watch the Stanford 2 part series "How To Invent The Future" with Alan Kay on youtube [0] it goes into a lot of detail about them. The challenge there with Xerox was they couldn't capitalize on every single idea that came out, just not logistically possible for a company to really do that. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id1WShzzMCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id1WShzzMCQ
samstave 5y ago
SpaceX and Tesla came 'out of' PayPal.
guerrilla 5y ago
> the crux is that most ideas that turn out to be revolutionary just don't originate within the accepted circle of domain experts, exactly because being a domain expert makes you more unlikely to think out of the box. I don't know about that... look at physics for example. You have plenty of experts who are total mavericks and then a bunch of outsiders spewing crankery and messing up on the basics.
tomhoward 5y ago
He didn't say "the accepted circle". Just domain experts. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were domain experts - they were doing a PhD dissertation on mapping and indexing the web. The other businesses you mention aren't all that crazy; they just needed good implementation.

jacquesm 5y ago

Those are all excellent examples of the main reason why innovation can not be done in established businesses: the fear of cannibalizing the cash cow will stifle any real innovation.

gustavo-fring 5y ago
Was the Playstation not revolutionary?
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  I don't think so, at least not in any technical aspect. Pretty much everything about the tech was a logical extension of industry trends. It began life as a CD-ROM add-on for the SNES similar to Sega's SegaCD for the Genesis/MegaDrive. Outside the technology, the low license cost and relative ease of developing for it built a sizeable and varied library of games, which I think was a major contributor to its success, but neither of those things strike me as particularly revolutionary.
kolinko 5y ago
Bell Labs is a counterexample to what you said. It developed the first transistor, photovoltaic cell, fiberiptic, lasers, cctv and some other things. Oh, and cellphones of course. Ditto Xerox Parc and modern user interfaces, ethernet and and laser printers.
- ta988 5y ago
  Agreed, it wiuld be more accurate to say it is not possible in companies that are optimizing finances short-term. Bell invested a ton of money with the hope it would bring results long term. I have yet to see a company's board authorizing that now...

taurath 5y ago

It’s also just as often someone who’s worked in an industry for a while and has a bunch of good ideas from understanding the problems. We put the college kids making big companies on a pedestal but most startups are from people who know the domain. You won’t find a revolutionary import/export company that doesn’t have some knowledge about the logistics industry. But you are more likely to be paying attention to new technologies as they emerge that might allow you to come up with the revolutionary ideas. I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older I’ve stopped spending my time fiddling with all my devices. As a result I’m less likely to realize when something new and exciting might be within reach, until it hits a higher point on the bell curve of maturity.

phenkdo 5y ago

However, for everyone of those examples there are many counter-examples: Intel came out of Shockley, ex-IBMers went onto found several other companies (SAP, Peoplesoft,...)... So Im skeptical of this outsider/insider characterization, IMHO it's almost always the individuals.

enumjorge 5y ago
Yeah this feels like an example of a narrative that sounds compelling but could easily be overstated. How many breakthrough innovations have “insiders” made that aren’t as noteworthy because they are more expected? Google was given as an example by the parent comment. Google also made a lot of breakthrough innovations in the distributed systems and browsers space after their outsiders phase.
adrianmsmith 5y ago
I agree. The iPhone is the perfect counter-example to this narrative: perhaps one of the most revolutionary pieces of hardware or software in the last 20 years, it came out of Apple, an established company at the time.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>Google didn't come out of Yahoo. from my reading of the history of Yahoo they had plenty of good ideas that they destroyed because the problem was not domain experts but thinking they were in the wrong business (media!)

shoto_io 5y ago

I agree 100%. The list could be continued indefinitely. Less positively formulated, you could also say people outside an industry are naïve enough to start something people inside would deem impossible.

Putshort 5y ago

You could also look at the list of Google's failures.

hoppyhoppy2 5y ago

Why are all your examples software companies? Certainly not because most of the world's revolutionary ideas are from programmers. Perhaps there are benefits to domain knowledge for coming up with revolutionary ideas in, say, biology or chemistry or electrical engineering or literature or political science or manufacturing or medicine...

pilingual 5y ago

I'm curious to see a list of world-changing ideas that came out of domain expertise and those that the essay claims could be dismissed because the person was not an expert. AirBnB, which is perhaps pg's favorite company, would never have gotten into Y Combinator without Michael Seibel and the endorsement of the JTV crew. AirBnB simply would not exist today. So I hope people don't read this essay and think, "I'm not a domain expert, so I'll give up on this idea." Somewhat of a dangerous essay for that reason.

ZephyrBlu 5y ago
I'd argue that for unique companies like AirBnB the founders become domain experts while they're building the company.
- marvin 5y ago
  I figured that was subtext, and that we're not necessarily talking about what a hotel executive would think.

matt_s 5y ago

I don't think pg intended that crazy new ideas require someone to be a domain expert, just some expertise. Slight wording difference. In the case of music, one could have domain expertise on audio files, compression and domain expertise about file sharing and domain expertise about younger people's listening habits. That's just having some insights into the domain, several as is the case with Napster. Music industry execs in those days probably had domain expertise on contract law, revenue sharing models, marketing and didn't have a clue about file sharing or audio compression. Also want to mention the examples you mention seem to have not much "newness" to them to be "crazy new" in my opinion. When I think of "crazy new" ideas, I think of things like stuff that came out of PARC in the 60's. If you go watch the Stanford 2 part series "How To Invent The Future" with Alan Kay on youtube [0] it goes into a lot of detail about them. The challenge there with Xerox was they couldn't capitalize on every single idea that came out, just not logistically possible for a company to really do that. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id1WShzzMCQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id1WShzzMCQ

samstave 5y ago

SpaceX and Tesla came 'out of' PayPal.

guerrilla 5y ago

> the crux is that most ideas that turn out to be revolutionary just don't originate within the accepted circle of domain experts, exactly because being a domain expert makes you more unlikely to think out of the box. I don't know about that... look at physics for example. You have plenty of experts who are total mavericks and then a bunch of outsiders spewing crankery and messing up on the basics.

tomhoward 5y ago

He didn't say "the accepted circle". Just domain experts. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were domain experts - they were doing a PhD dissertation on mapping and indexing the web. The other businesses you mention aren't all that crazy; they just needed good implementation.