The guy is onto something big. If you think about it, all tech ideas can be grouped into one of three categories: 1. Someone is doing exactly this. Response:

The guy is onto something big. If you think about it, all tech ideas can be grouped into one of three categories: 1. Someone is doing exactly this. Response: "How is this different from (someone already doing it)? Even if it's better, what keeps the biggest guys from doing the same thing?" 2.a. Nobody has done this. Response: "There are a lot of very smart engineers out there. Wouldn't one of them be doing this if it worked? Even if you get it to work, what keeps them from just executing on the same thing, better." 2.b. People have tried and failed. "A lot of people have tried this. They failed. What makes you think you will succeed?" -- Now let's work through some concrete examples. First, take Google. When it launched as a search engine in Stanford, there were loads of other search engines. This puts it firmly in category "1". There was nothing Google could do that another company couldn't. Next let's take eBay. When it launched as "a perfect market" based on auctions, nobody had done that. Firmly 2.a. category. Finally let's take Dropbox. A lot of people had this idea. They failed. Firmly 2.b. category. Basically, there is not an idea that I could name that doesn't fall into one of these three categories. You can dismiss everything. I am personally working on a massive project that involves fundamental innovation and falls firmly in 2.a. It is really hard. Progress is very slow. As a break I've started a bit of a side project. This one falls firmly in 2.b. In the nineties and even before, this second project got loads of attention, huge amounts of research (I can find publications up the wazoo) and never took off. People tried to do it and failed. What separates me from the opinion just expressed by David Sacks is: Fuck you, David Sacks. That's what.