There is a similar line of thought in how tech people always seem to think their startup idea has to be something completely new. It usually goes like this...

There is a similar line of thought in how tech people always seem to think their startup idea has to be something completely new. It usually goes like this... Person A: I got this great idea! If you do X to Y you will get Z which is of huge value for people working in M. Great, huh? Person B: Yawn. Company SomeCorp did that in 1974. Person A (spirit broken): Darn... The idea that a new company has to come up with something completely new must be unique to our business. Even so, the number of successful web companies that did not have a unique idea when they started should be enough to kill the argument, but it lives on. Probably because of the reason mentioned in this post: smart people just don't think it's smart enough to do something someone else has already done.