> And yet the truly successful people have gotten to where they are by sticking to their beliefs There are a great many "startup mantras" which seem contradict

> And yet the truly successful people have gotten to where they are by sticking to their beliefs There are a great many "startup mantras" which seem contradictory at a glance: 1. Founders should insist on product excellence, but release early (be embarrassed by the first version). 2. Startups only die when their founders give up, but founders who don't cut their losses at the right time lose credibility. 3. [The one at hand...] The best founders are driven by a secret about the world that other people don't know yet, and yet good founders are never married to an idea. None of those things are actually contradictory, though: 1. An MVP is not a shitty product, it is a minimal product (founders should be embarrassed by lack of features, but the ones that are there should work well). 2. Both statements are true, even if uncomfortable. Add to the list of difficult balances founders must achieve. 3. Both statements are true here, too. I suspect that the best founders are actually driven by a family of secrets ("hypotheses" in the essay at hand) and yet would not think twice about adapting them in the face of new evidence. (Your example of Darwin is a good one to consider here--he stuck to his beliefs because he had strong evidence for them, and he would have changed his beliefs had new evidence presented itself. The prevailing opinion of society did not factor into that process.)