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This kind of attitude seem to be very common among 'ambitious' founders, especially the YC crowd.

TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
Historically parodied as "One day the world will understand my true genius. And then you'll all be sorry!" It's trivially easy to disprove. Just read some vintage issues of Byte to see an impressive number of not entirely crazy novel ideas from established domain experts which crashed and burned. Of course some of these ideas - a minority - turned out to be successful. But a little digging shows success was not about the quality of the tech, and more the quality of the marketing, with some occasional monopolist strong-arming. In fact this is very much the US model. Take an okay to good idea, hype it into the stratosphere with a massive marketing and brand recognition campaign, and sell it at an inflated price. If you're lucky you can pitch it as a B2C Veblen lifestyle good or a B2B strategic corporate necessity. Win. That's very different to debating the tech itself purely on intrinsic technical merits. In a very literal sense it's a different argument happening in a different space. It's neither helpful nor clarifying to imply it isn't.
- biztos 6y ago
  > Just read some vintage issues of Byte I still have the AI issue of Byte[0] and there still aren’t any robots that can draw for shit. /s [0]: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1985-04 https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1985-04
- TimPC 6y ago
  I don't think most crazy ideas crashing and burning is good enough to disprove the thesis. Even if 1 in 100 ideas that can bring about 10x change in important areas are all that succeed, we need those ideas to improve things. I think if you look for marketing you'll find it, so even ideas that win on technology can look like monopolist strong-arming if that's what you're looking for. Also not all ideas that win on technology are the very best the technology could be, they are often the right compromise that's a good deal better than what they competed against. Windows for instance did a lot of strong arming monopolist tactics but was also the clear technical winner on PC for ease of use for much of its existence. I don't think the monopolist tactics would be enough if the average joe found it too hard to use.
  - skeeter2020 6y ago
    >> Even if 1 in 100 ideas that can bring about 10x change in important areas are all that succeed, we need those ideas to improve things Even by your own math this is a bad idea, with 1 in 100 leading to a 10x improvement we'd be better to stick with what we've got.
    - TimPC 5y ago
      That’s not how math works. 10x improvements don’t necessary capture 10x revenue. And 100 experiments don’t necessarily cost 1x revenue each.
- quickthrower2 6y ago
  The word “idea” might be the problem. “Business plan” or “business strategy” might be better? Even “mission strategy”? That encompasses the idea and how to get it executed and what resources are needed to get it to be sustainable, over what timescale. This applies to business but also charity, non profit, political efforts etc. Notice I didn’t mention profit or even revenue. These days ideas can go a long time being supported by investors who see the strategy. For example I am thinking of YouTube, Tesla etc. But there needs to be a strategy. Like a rocket launch or starting a campfire there might need to be different stages where the idea to the uninitiated looks very different at each stage, but it’s all part of the same master plan. For example. Uber was a taxi firm + app at first. Peer to peer came later.
qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
If so that suggests it's the right attitude to have.

Historically parodied as "One day the world will understand my true genius. And then you'll all be sorry!" It's trivially easy to disprove. Just read some vintage issues of Byte to see an impressive number of not entirely crazy novel ideas from established domain experts which crashed and burned. Of course some of these ideas - a minority - turned out to be successful. But a little digging shows success was not about the quality of the tech, and more the quality of the marketing, with some occasional monopolist strong-arming. In fact this is very much the US model. Take an okay to good idea, hype it into the stratosphere with a massive marketing and brand recognition campaign, and sell it at an inflated price. If you're lucky you can pitch it as a B2C Veblen lifestyle good or a B2B strategic corporate necessity. Win. That's very different to debating the tech itself purely on intrinsic technical merits. In a very literal sense it's a different argument happening in a different space. It's neither helpful nor clarifying to imply it isn't.

biztos 6y ago
> Just read some vintage issues of Byte I still have the AI issue of Byte[0] and there still aren’t any robots that can draw for shit. /s [0]: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1985-04 https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1985-04
TimPC 6y ago
I don't think most crazy ideas crashing and burning is good enough to disprove the thesis. Even if 1 in 100 ideas that can bring about 10x change in important areas are all that succeed, we need those ideas to improve things. I think if you look for marketing you'll find it, so even ideas that win on technology can look like monopolist strong-arming if that's what you're looking for. Also not all ideas that win on technology are the very best the technology could be, they are often the right compromise that's a good deal better than what they competed against. Windows for instance did a lot of strong arming monopolist tactics but was also the clear technical winner on PC for ease of use for much of its existence. I don't think the monopolist tactics would be enough if the average joe found it too hard to use.
- skeeter2020 6y ago
  >> Even if 1 in 100 ideas that can bring about 10x change in important areas are all that succeed, we need those ideas to improve things Even by your own math this is a bad idea, with 1 in 100 leading to a 10x improvement we'd be better to stick with what we've got.
  - TimPC 5y ago
    That’s not how math works. 10x improvements don’t necessary capture 10x revenue. And 100 experiments don’t necessarily cost 1x revenue each.
quickthrower2 6y ago
The word “idea” might be the problem. “Business plan” or “business strategy” might be better? Even “mission strategy”? That encompasses the idea and how to get it executed and what resources are needed to get it to be sustainable, over what timescale. This applies to business but also charity, non profit, political efforts etc. Notice I didn’t mention profit or even revenue. These days ideas can go a long time being supported by investors who see the strategy. For example I am thinking of YouTube, Tesla etc. But there needs to be a strategy. Like a rocket launch or starting a campfire there might need to be different stages where the idea to the uninitiated looks very different at each stage, but it’s all part of the same master plan. For example. Uber was a taxi firm + app at first. Peer to peer came later.

qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago

If so that suggests it's the right attitude to have.