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I think the tricky part with innovation, is almost everything innovative looks like a bad idea to almost everyone. And as the tech or company progresses, more p

I think the tricky part with innovation, is almost everything innovative looks like a bad idea to almost everyone. And as the tech or company progresses, more people look at it and think it's a good idea. If it were really obviously a good idea, there's no innovation, there would already be others doing it. And this is in contrast to what YC likes to call tarpit ideas, because there are lots of ideas that look good but everyone who tries to tackle them fails for whatever reason. So we can say metaverse was a bad bet for Facebook, but that's sort of looking in hindsight at the struggles that tech has and the unknown market. And it appears to be a big bet and lost. But comparing to current state of AI, is sort of comparing to a different stage, where there is the beginning of an early majority seeing the progress and now seeing the excitement. But go back a couple of years, and more of us would be naysayers, talking about how bad the tech is, or various failure modes.

cirgue 4y ago
> almost everything innovative looks like a bad idea to almost everyone I disagree really strongly with this. Innovative things look like impractical long shots that have obvious upsides but that violate conventional wisdom around what is possible. The smartphone is a great example of this: it was obviously innovative, and the idea was obviously great before it actually became reality, but the practical limitations of hardware made it impossible until one day it wasn’t. Same for generative language models. The real innovation for both of these things is that some element constraining a good idea changes and someone notices and can act on it decisively. Some version of the Metaverse has always been possible in one form or another, but no one acts on it because it doesn’t benefit the users it depends on for success. The fundamental limiting factor is participation incentive, and technology doesn’t change that.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> that's sort of looking in hindsight at the struggles that tech has and the unknown market There is innovating, trend following and what I’ll term trend completion. Innovation creates new categories. Crypto was innovative. It looks like a losing bet, but nobody can doubt it was daring. Trend completion doesn’t create new categories, but it delivers on a promise. The iPhone is in this category. A product delivered against the incompleteness preceding it. (And synthesising categories.) Absent that tangibility or specificity you have trend following. Facebook didn’t create the VR/AR category. It hasn’t delivered a product. It hasn’t even described a uniquely compelling vision. It jumped into a fad because others were doing it and then flailed around helplessly while executives penned PowerPoints.
temporal828 4y ago
> I think the tricky part with innovation, is almost everything innovative looks like a bad idea to almost everyone. No. No. The steam engine, modern refrigeration and open heart surgery all probably had some naysayers but I don't think they looked like bad ideas to almost everyone. A lot of what qualifies as innovative from your tech community really just might be crap. From the beginning the complaint with crypto and blockchain is that it didn't fix any problems other than maybe assisting as a tool in laundering/illegal transactions, and it wastes energy to boot. I don't see how the naysayers were wrong. The metaverse idea didn't even get to the point of hyping a purpose. Nobody even bothered to explain what useful human need or want it fulfilled (beyond what has already been fulfilled for years in gaming). > But comparing to current state of AI, is sort of comparing to a different stage, where there is the beginning of an early majority Early majority? That is a bold affirmation. I think these large language models are pretty neat. I also lived through the first AI winters. I would say the hype at this moment isn't even as great as it was then (especially in the 80s). It is a bit tough to explain for those that weren't there - but numerous knowledgable and intelligent people were convinced that the AI singularity was just moments away.
- _puk 4y ago
  Plenty of truly innovative inventions aren't initially universally loved, take automobiles for example[0]. 0: https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/01/get-horse-americas-skepticism-toward-first-automobiles/ https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/01/get-horse-americ...
- midland_trucker 4y ago
  I'm not sure I can get on board with the sentiment of your first point. Anaesthesia as another example took more than a century to get right, had some huge failures and wasn't taken seriously. It surely earns the label of innovative but just happened on a much larger timescale.
  - kevin_nisbet 4y ago
    As I recall, refrigeration also went through multiple disruption cycles, or at least how someone got ice. As I recall but could be mistaken, almost no company survived from one cycle to the next. The first cycle was ice huts, basically insulated bunkers where you could get ice through the summer that was collected in winter. This industry got totally replaced by the first of commercial refrigeration, that could generate and store ice from water. Which got disrupted and replaced against, with home refrigeration, someone can make ice at home, or get ice from a bigger version at a store. The point I was trying to make, perhaps badly worded, was that these disruptions weren't obvious ideas by those in the industry. Otherwise they would have embraced the change technology allowed and rode into the new markets. We're looking in hindsight, and going it's obvious it's a good idea, because we all have a fridge and can make ice at home. But at the time, those who owned the entire industry, couldn't see it.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
seanhunter 4y ago
Even if you accept that anything innovative looks like a bad idea to almost anyone[1] that doesn't mean that anything that looks like a bad idea is per se innovative and just misunderstood. There are things that are just terrible ideas. Lead swimming trunks. Asbestos baby clothes. etc I could come up with thousands of things that the vast majority of people would think are a bad idea because _they are_. [1] which I totally don't buy. If you think about the early internet as an example - the vast majority of people I knew didn't _understand_ it, and/or didn't _care_ and certainly didn't have any sense of its future, but no one that I knew thought it was a bad idea. If they thought about it all they thought it was irrelevant to them until they absolutely got it and couldn't get on board fast enough.
asdfman123 4y ago
> almost everything innovative looks like a bad idea to almost everyone But some ideas are obviously bad within that framework. I could invest millions trying to build a commuter-friendly transportation rocket, but that's obviously not worth trying. Any potential critics would almost certainly be right.

cirgue 4y ago

> almost everything innovative looks like a bad idea to almost everyone I disagree really strongly with this. Innovative things look like impractical long shots that have obvious upsides but that violate conventional wisdom around what is possible. The smartphone is a great example of this: it was obviously innovative, and the idea was obviously great before it actually became reality, but the practical limitations of hardware made it impossible until one day it wasn’t. Same for generative language models. The real innovation for both of these things is that some element constraining a good idea changes and someone notices and can act on it decisively. Some version of the Metaverse has always been possible in one form or another, but no one acts on it because it doesn’t benefit the users it depends on for success. The fundamental limiting factor is participation incentive, and technology doesn’t change that.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> that's sort of looking in hindsight at the struggles that tech has and the unknown market There is innovating, trend following and what I’ll term trend completion. Innovation creates new categories. Crypto was innovative. It looks like a losing bet, but nobody can doubt it was daring. Trend completion doesn’t create new categories, but it delivers on a promise. The iPhone is in this category. A product delivered against the incompleteness preceding it. (And synthesising categories.) Absent that tangibility or specificity you have trend following. Facebook didn’t create the VR/AR category. It hasn’t delivered a product. It hasn’t even described a uniquely compelling vision. It jumped into a fad because others were doing it and then flailed around helplessly while executives penned PowerPoints.

temporal828 4y ago

> I think the tricky part with innovation, is almost everything innovative looks like a bad idea to almost everyone. No. No. The steam engine, modern refrigeration and open heart surgery all probably had some naysayers but I don't think they looked like bad ideas to almost everyone. A lot of what qualifies as innovative from your tech community really just might be crap. From the beginning the complaint with crypto and blockchain is that it didn't fix any problems other than maybe assisting as a tool in laundering/illegal transactions, and it wastes energy to boot. I don't see how the naysayers were wrong. The metaverse idea didn't even get to the point of hyping a purpose. Nobody even bothered to explain what useful human need or want it fulfilled (beyond what has already been fulfilled for years in gaming). > But comparing to current state of AI, is sort of comparing to a different stage, where there is the beginning of an early majority Early majority? That is a bold affirmation. I think these large language models are pretty neat. I also lived through the first AI winters. I would say the hype at this moment isn't even as great as it was then (especially in the 80s). It is a bit tough to explain for those that weren't there - but numerous knowledgable and intelligent people were convinced that the AI singularity was just moments away.

_puk 4y ago
Plenty of truly innovative inventions aren't initially universally loved, take automobiles for example[0]. 0: https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/01/get-horse-americas-skepticism-toward-first-automobiles/ https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2017/01/get-horse-americ...
midland_trucker 4y ago
I'm not sure I can get on board with the sentiment of your first point. Anaesthesia as another example took more than a century to get right, had some huge failures and wasn't taken seriously. It surely earns the label of innovative but just happened on a much larger timescale.
- kevin_nisbet 4y ago
  As I recall, refrigeration also went through multiple disruption cycles, or at least how someone got ice. As I recall but could be mistaken, almost no company survived from one cycle to the next. The first cycle was ice huts, basically insulated bunkers where you could get ice through the summer that was collected in winter. This industry got totally replaced by the first of commercial refrigeration, that could generate and store ice from water. Which got disrupted and replaced against, with home refrigeration, someone can make ice at home, or get ice from a bigger version at a store. The point I was trying to make, perhaps badly worded, was that these disruptions weren't obvious ideas by those in the industry. Otherwise they would have embraced the change technology allowed and rode into the new markets. We're looking in hindsight, and going it's obvious it's a good idea, because we all have a fridge and can make ice at home. But at the time, those who owned the entire industry, couldn't see it.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

seanhunter 4y ago

Even if you accept that anything innovative looks like a bad idea to almost anyone[1] that doesn't mean that anything that looks like a bad idea is per se innovative and just misunderstood. There are things that are just terrible ideas. Lead swimming trunks. Asbestos baby clothes. etc I could come up with thousands of things that the vast majority of people would think are a bad idea because _they are_. [1] which I totally don't buy. If you think about the early internet as an example - the vast majority of people I knew didn't _understand_ it, and/or didn't _care_ and certainly didn't have any sense of its future, but no one that I knew thought it was a bad idea. If they thought about it all they thought it was irrelevant to them until they absolutely got it and couldn't get on board fast enough.

asdfman123 4y ago

> almost everything innovative looks like a bad idea to almost everyone But some ideas are obviously bad within that framework. I could invest millions trying to build a commuter-friendly transportation rocket, but that's obviously not worth trying. Any potential critics would almost certainly be right.