That bugs me too, even more so when I hear it from VC or their brethren, because it seems like they should know better. Steve Jobs was not the next Bill Hewlet

That bugs me too, even more so when I hear it from VC or their brethren, because it seems like they should know better. Steve Jobs was not the next Bill Hewlett; Elon Musk is not the next Steve Jobs; Google was not the next Apple; Facebook was not the next Google. The only thing those all share in common is that they were the next big thing. Although you can use those examples as aliases for "the next big thing", they'll tend to change the traits that you're looking for. If you're looking for "the next Mark Zuckerberg" for instance, then it's easy to let yourself get trapped into looking for someone with Mark Zuckerberg-like traits -- and then you'll miss the next big thing, because that person isn't going to be "the next Mark Zuckerberg".