It’s a matter of preference. I’d rather be challenged, even in everyday conversation, because I just enjoy debating and getting to the heart of an issue. The mo

It’s a matter of preference. I’d rather be challenged, even in everyday conversation, because I just enjoy debating and getting to the heart of an issue. The most helpful thing anyone’s done for my ideas has been to say “Shut up. Stop telling me I should care and just show me why I should care”. It’s like a good elevator pitch: tell what you’re doing, show why it matters. Good and bad ideas get corresponding reactions—“your idea is bad and you should feel bad” versus “shut up and take my money”, if you will. But if your idea is “frighteningly ambitious”, then they’ll probably just say “yeah, right” or “how‽” For example, I’m writing the legendary “sufficiently smart compiler”; with it, your program will run on many cores and computers as if they were one fast one. Yeah. Right. So yes, it’s a shame when talent goes unrecognised, but founders and funders need to meet each other halfway—somewhere around “fɔunders”, I guess. And there’s no reason you can’t be kind and firm at the same time.