3 ms·

I love this story. Why? Because it is the story of so many startups. I was so perplexed in the mid-90's when the dot com "boom" had started by people who wanted

I love this story. Why? Because it is the story of so many startups. I was so perplexed in the mid-90's when the dot com "boom" had started by people who wanted to do a "startup" but had no idea what that meant. Like the author, people with a feeling of Destiny that they would be some leader of something that everyone talked about. I had the same beliefs when I left Sun where clearly I would never be "famous" but by starting a company that became big? Sure anyone could do that. And in fact, a peer at Sun for whom I felt was not particularly qualified at anything, had gone on to a startup which had then gone public and made millions! And if he could do it, well it was guaranteed for me, right? Yeah, no. At the other end of my career and looking back it becomes possible to see things that you missed on the journey, the role of luck, the difference between talking hard and working hard, and the critical importance of the people involved. A million monkeys with a million typewriters won't eventually create Shakespeare's works, they will waste a lot of resources and create a bunch trash. I also discovered that there are people who, when they speak, you really want to believe what they are saying. Being able to step back and say "what's the foundation here? Why should I believe this?" can be very difficult.

jakey_bakey 1y ago
Do you think a million monkeys with a million typewriters could come up with Oracle Database 11?
- jimbokun 1y ago
  Is an existence proof allowed?
_DeadFred_ 1y ago
Pitch: It's a replacement for Blockbuster. But instead of going and getting instant gratification and getting to watch the movie you want to watch tonight, you create a wishlist and we send you 3 titles off that list (normally the 3 least popular), which may or may not be what you want to watch right now, and add the convenience of injecting the United States Post Office into the process.
- ChuckMcM 1y ago
  https://xkcd.com/2618 https://xkcd.com/2618 right?
praptak 1y ago
A million monkeys with a million typewrites will statistically have one lucky monkey who creates an extremely successful product which also looks very dumb and very unconvincing ("Srsly? You want to make money from random people hosting strangers in their own rooms?" Bang, AirBnB) The problem is selection bias. A startup is 3 monkeys tops, so the chances of that are appropriately low and if the product looks dumb and unconvincing, it probably is ("...but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.")
- ChuckMcM 1y ago
  There should probably be an entire chapter written on "Okay, but what if the product was desirable but not 'technically' legal, hmmm?" :-)
  - praptak 1y ago
    It would say "we all know how it went" :)
    - ChuckMcM 1y ago
      Had an interesting discussion this past weekend on whether or not Silkroad was a criminal enterprise or a very successful startup. It was an interesting look at the question of 'business first' versus 'lawful first' societies and their relative success through history.
  - jimbokun 1y ago
    I would say good luck finding enough very successful companies NOT matching that description to fill a chapter.
- throwaway13024 1y ago
  I joined a startup after working for 10+ years in regular companies and there was an incredible mix of highly competent and experienced people who knew how to get things done and were willing to put their egos aside to grow the product. As a small group, we made a product that was easy to sell. It was our market's "Iphone" moment. Our competitors were shaken and concerned because of our momentum and modern approach (they used Windows software on a yearly update schedule, while we were based on ios/android/web and updated daily). I don't think the founder realised how lucky they were to have this combination of people, as this was their first startup after years in enterprise sales. There were other competitors that started around the same time as us, but they failed to deliver. I don't think we were necessarily better at developing, sales or marketing individually, but as a team we were able to work together really well. When the founder raised a significant amount of money, they decided it was time to scale up and become a "real" company with proper hierarchy, reporting lines and processes. They hired people from FAANG who had impressive resumes, but were more concerned with titles and proving themselves. Constant rewrites, re-orgs and workshops to improve working processes made sure that progress halted, and most of the original team left. Today, the product is still alive as a minor actor, but they lost a lot of momentum and the competitors had time to launch their own "cloud" products. It was painful at the time, but now I look back and I see it as an important lesson.

jakey_bakey 1y ago

Do you think a million monkeys with a million typewriters could come up with Oracle Database 11?

jimbokun 1y ago
Is an existence proof allowed?

_DeadFred_ 1y ago

Pitch: It's a replacement for Blockbuster. But instead of going and getting instant gratification and getting to watch the movie you want to watch tonight, you create a wishlist and we send you 3 titles off that list (normally the 3 least popular), which may or may not be what you want to watch right now, and add the convenience of injecting the United States Post Office into the process.

ChuckMcM 1y ago
https://xkcd.com/2618 https://xkcd.com/2618 right?

praptak 1y ago

A million monkeys with a million typewrites will statistically have one lucky monkey who creates an extremely successful product which also looks very dumb and very unconvincing ("Srsly? You want to make money from random people hosting strangers in their own rooms?" Bang, AirBnB) The problem is selection bias. A startup is 3 monkeys tops, so the chances of that are appropriately low and if the product looks dumb and unconvincing, it probably is ("...but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.")

ChuckMcM 1y ago
There should probably be an entire chapter written on "Okay, but what if the product was desirable but not 'technically' legal, hmmm?" :-)
- praptak 1y ago
  It would say "we all know how it went" :)
  - ChuckMcM 1y ago
    Had an interesting discussion this past weekend on whether or not Silkroad was a criminal enterprise or a very successful startup. It was an interesting look at the question of 'business first' versus 'lawful first' societies and their relative success through history.
- jimbokun 1y ago
  I would say good luck finding enough very successful companies NOT matching that description to fill a chapter.
throwaway13024 1y ago
I joined a startup after working for 10+ years in regular companies and there was an incredible mix of highly competent and experienced people who knew how to get things done and were willing to put their egos aside to grow the product. As a small group, we made a product that was easy to sell. It was our market's "Iphone" moment. Our competitors were shaken and concerned because of our momentum and modern approach (they used Windows software on a yearly update schedule, while we were based on ios/android/web and updated daily). I don't think the founder realised how lucky they were to have this combination of people, as this was their first startup after years in enterprise sales. There were other competitors that started around the same time as us, but they failed to deliver. I don't think we were necessarily better at developing, sales or marketing individually, but as a team we were able to work together really well. When the founder raised a significant amount of money, they decided it was time to scale up and become a "real" company with proper hierarchy, reporting lines and processes. They hired people from FAANG who had impressive resumes, but were more concerned with titles and proving themselves. Constant rewrites, re-orgs and workshops to improve working processes made sure that progress halted, and most of the original team left. Today, the product is still alive as a minor actor, but they lost a lot of momentum and the competitors had time to launch their own "cloud" products. It was painful at the time, but now I look back and I see it as an important lesson.