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Infinite monkeys and infinite repos

robertheaton.com

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Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos

#11

Post by jt2190 »

davedx wrote: post #9
jt2190 wrote: post #6

> The... ecosystem [of random startup ideas] would be > arguably more diverse, more innovative and overall better > for consumers. Instead of having 8 million photo sharing > apps and 11 million social network aggregators, you would > instead have an infinite number of truly bold products. Somehow I think that there must be a better approach to creating more innovation than generating ideas at random, but I get his p…

I think to some degree, it can show you what is in demand. The problem is, is it something in demand by developers or by bill paying customers? And there is definitely a better approach, it's called "market research". :-)

We may be talking about the inability of our research techniques to find all possible markets then. If companies targeted markets at random, then some of them would find the markets missed by our imperfect research. This would require that companies stop caring about survival and profit though, so perhaps the current funding models don't do a good job of incentivizing founders to think broadly.

Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos

#12

Post by k__ »

davedx wrote: post #7

>Creating something transcendentally awesome requires doing stuff that at the time looks completely random, and it’s the ability and willingness to do this that will make you incredible. >Have the courage to try things that look like they could only have been conceived by an inexhaustible supply of apes. It’s not necessarily a terrible thing to be an Infinite Monkey Startup. No thanks, I'm going to spend my valuable…

Some people want to hit the world with something new and some people just want to get rich :)

Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos

#13

Post by smoyer »

"They wouldn’t pay any notice to flimsy trends, since monkeys don’t read TechCrunch."

Maybe we do pay too much attention to TechCrunch, but can you imagine the articles you'd read there when they start reporting on the Simian Start-ups? (simianstartups.com and simian-startups.com are both available ... let the gold rush begin).

Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos

#15

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

Imagine an infinite number of 32GB microsd cards. One of those cards would contain at least 100's of the best apps out there for every platform, 100's of the best books, and 100's of the best photos, as well as 100's of the best blog posts. It would truly be original unlike all the software today that builds on previous ideas, or books that build on previous ideas, or art that builds on previous ideas.

Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos

#17

Post by davidw »

I thought this was going to be about the insane proliferation of "forks" of any given popular github repository.

Some advice: just forking something and hacking on it is just the start. If you'd like to give something back to the open source community, be sure you communicate with the other people involved in the project about your changes. That may be a pull request, but for more complex things, might well also involve writing something to the mailing list.

Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos

#18

Post by kybernetyk »

k__ wrote: post #12
davedx wrote: post #7

>Creating something transcendentally awesome requires doing stuff that at the time looks completely random, and it’s the ability and willingness to do this that will make you incredible. >Have the courage to try things that look like they could only have been conceived by an inexhaustible supply of apes. It’s not necessarily a terrible thing to be an Infinite Monkey Startup. No thanks, I'm going to spend my valuable…

Some people want to hit the world with something new and some people just want to get rich :)

And then there are people who want to create great products and get paid to support themselves and further development. Neither selling snake-oil nor starving are an option to them.

Please don't make it sound like not making "free/libre open source" would equal being a greedy capitalist who only cares for profits.

Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos

#19

Post by kybernetyk »

jt2190 wrote: post #6

> The... ecosystem [of random startup ideas] would be > arguably more diverse, more innovative and overall better > for consumers. Instead of having 8 million photo sharing > apps and 11 million social network aggregators, you would > instead have an infinite number of truly bold products. Somehow I think that there must be a better approach to creating more innovation than generating ideas at random, but I get his p…

Innovation is iteration.

Creation of truly new things happens at most just a few times in a human life span.

The rest revolves around taking existing stuff and making it better. And there's nothing bad about it. It's how our technological evolution has worked since the "invention" of the wheel.

Re: Infinite monkeys and infinite repos

#20

Post by edw519 »

This post is the exact opposite of my primary mode of building software and yet I still love it. Why? Because it makes me think outside the box, which is my secondary mode of building software.

I've longed believed that addressing the hair-on-fire needs of real customers was the best way to stay on the critical path. But every once in a while, the world throws you a curve ball and things work out differently.

Just recently I needed to build a bunch of tools to help me build something a customer needed. I had no idea that the tools would turn out to be the better product. Who knew? An infinite number of monkeys, maybe.

Thanks OP for the enlightening thoughts. Now go build something someone wants.

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