This is a great point, but pg actually did touch on it in his essay: Let me conclude with some tactical advice. If you want to take on a problem as big as the

This is a great point, but pg actually did touch on it in his essay: Let me conclude with some tactical advice. If you want to take on a problem as big as the ones I've discussed, don't make a direct frontal attack on it. Don't say, for example, that you're going to replace email. If you do that you raise too many expectations. Your employees and investors will constantly be asking "are we there yet?" and you'll have an army of haters waiting to see you fail. Just say you're building todo-list software. That sounds harmless. People can notice you've replaced email when it's a fait accompli. It was in the 'tactics' section near the bottom of http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html