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On the other hand there have been numerous examples of people who knew relatively nothing about a field and came to completely dominate it. That is the incredi

On the other hand there have been numerous examples of people who knew relatively nothing about a field and came to completely dominate it. That is the incredible thing about Silicon Valley. People who knew/know nothing about various industries when starting come to utterly dominate them. Amazon should never have succeeded. They knew nothing about books compared to booksellers. They won anyway. And then proceeded to utterly crush every other company in retail. And they continue to do so. SpaceX is utterly absurd in its existence. Utterly absurd. Boeing and Lockheed had way more knowledge and experience. Yet they are about to be pushed out of a lot of launch.

pavlov 5y ago
How is Amazon part of Silicon Valley? Bezos worked at Wall Street for almost a decade in roles like VP at a hedge fund, then started a company in Seattle. If anything, you might say that hedge fund experience qualifies one to dominate industries — if one extreme outlier is to be believed anyway.
FanaHOVA 5y ago
Nothing in the article says that knowledge cannot be acquired. The examples that you mentioned aren't cocktail party ideas, but groups of smart people working 100 hours weeks to figure out a new market. I can give you a ton of examples of founders trying the same but failing very hard because they don't take the time to learn and just use cocktail party ideas.
- kragen 5y ago
  > I can give you a ton of examples of founders trying the same but failing very hard because they don't take the time to learn and just use cocktail party ideas. Maybe you don't have the time to deliver the entire ton, but could you give one example?
xbar 5y ago
Your examples are not my favorites, but you are right. And even when folks who don't know the field don't dominate, there have been lots of cocktail party conversations that led to massively successful ventures. I do not go to cocktail parties any more, but I think I was more creative for having endured more regular bullshit sessions with people who thought greatly of themselves, even if I did not. I would not try to "fix" that experience. But the author did have a number of references and comments about knowledge and knowledge seeking that are useful.

pavlov 5y ago

How is Amazon part of Silicon Valley? Bezos worked at Wall Street for almost a decade in roles like VP at a hedge fund, then started a company in Seattle. If anything, you might say that hedge fund experience qualifies one to dominate industries — if one extreme outlier is to be believed anyway.

FanaHOVA 5y ago

Nothing in the article says that knowledge cannot be acquired. The examples that you mentioned aren't cocktail party ideas, but groups of smart people working 100 hours weeks to figure out a new market. I can give you a ton of examples of founders trying the same but failing very hard because they don't take the time to learn and just use cocktail party ideas.

kragen 5y ago
> I can give you a ton of examples of founders trying the same but failing very hard because they don't take the time to learn and just use cocktail party ideas. Maybe you don't have the time to deliver the entire ton, but could you give one example?

xbar 5y ago

Your examples are not my favorites, but you are right. And even when folks who don't know the field don't dominate, there have been lots of cocktail party conversations that led to massively successful ventures. I do not go to cocktail parties any more, but I think I was more creative for having endured more regular bullshit sessions with people who thought greatly of themselves, even if I did not. I would not try to "fix" that experience. But the author did have a number of references and comments about knowledge and knowledge seeking that are useful.