Abandon Your Big Idea. But Don’t Give Up Your Big Ambition.

Post by ghc » Fri, Dec 09, 2011, 1:35 PM UTC

chubot wrote: post #8

ghc wrote: post #3

Remember, entrepreneurs: this is how academics think. And this is the attitude that makes begging for money via grants a lot more appealing than entrepreneurship. It's "give me money to do this because I'm an expert in it" instead of "make something people want and they will give you money."

Huh? So entrepreneurs are "better" than academics? That's just silly and pompous. Remember, 90% of everything is crap. That goes for both businesses and research.

I have no idea how you got that conclusion from my comment. My point was that the academic attitude about expertise is pompous. I've worked with several academics and research labs trying to turn their research into startups, and you would not believe the attitudes prevalent in academia. The most common example of this I've seen is when professors bring up a potential competitor and state that the competitor does not have as much expertise (no founders with PhDs in the subject matter) as the professor, so the professor's new company should succeed wildly.

If the attitude present in this article was paid any mind by innovators, we would not have some things we truly love. My favorite example is ZFS. Built by prodigious hackers, not distributed filesystem experts by any means. I can't find the article anymore, but I remember reading that they felt their lack of expertise allowed them to approach the problem from a new angle, ignoring common wisdom.

My message to young entrepreneurs is this: Innovation doesn't work by experts expertly shaping the future incrementally. Innovation is messy. It works by lots of people - some experts, some not - trying to solve a problem. Almost everyone will fail, but you can't succeed if you don't try.

Post by mcshaner1 » Sat, Dec 10, 2011, 5:37 AM UTC

nickpinkston wrote: post #14

mashmac2 wrote: post #12

Important to note also, this blog article is aimed at students, who don't have significant domain experience in any field most likely. Therefore, his advice is sound for this audience as giving up big ideas is necessary when they're so nebulous and you don't have anything you could apply it to. An entrepreneur, by definition, has a skill in 'making something people want' and getting them to give you money and can app…

While agree that this must be filtered for his audience of students, I have to take issue with his tone that seems to boil down to what most of academia does: very unambitious incremental research. Sure - this schlep is needed, but I think his cadre our too biased in this direction. The system dislikes risky research, and that's a shame. Also, a glance at his books looks exactly like the grade-grubbing BS that leads…

Regarding his books, he explicitly states the valedictorian approach is probably wrong for most students in one of his books (The High School Superstar one). He recommends almost the opposite approach, which seems to be close to what you are saying, do well enough to get your foot in the door grade wise and go deep in something interesting.

Re: Abandon Your Big Idea. But Don’t Give Up Your Big Ambition.

Re: Abandon Your Big Idea. But Don’t Give Up Your Big Ambition.