I'm sorry if this is an unsatisfying answer, but if you mean convincingly pitched, I couldn't answer a question like that without disclosing the long-term plans of startups that would prefer to keep them secret. If you mean unconvincingly pitched, it would probably be the applications we get from people who've discovered new power sources that violate the laws of physics.
"violate the laws of physics"
I suspect the convincing ones violate conventional wisdom, best practices, and to a certain degree, common sense.
Can you say where the scariest and most ambitious convincing pitch was on the following scale? 1) We're going to build the next Facebook! 2) We're going to found the next Apple! 3) Our product will create sweeping political change! This will produce a major economic revolution in at least one country! (Seasteading would be change on this level if it worked; creating a new country successfully is around the same level…
Eliezer, I believe you just created the Yudkowsky Ambition scale. My startup, http://automicrofarm.com/ , rates between a 3 and a 5, depending on how successful it becomes, in my opinion.
I've been following/researching aquaponics for quite some time. It really does seem like the future - I hope you can pull this off.
Being on the Maker schedule doesn't imply being awake at 3 AM.
PG writes of the Maker Schedule: " I evolved another trick for partitioning the day. I used to program from dinner till about 3 am every day, because at night no one could interrupt me. Then I'd sleep till about 11 am, and come in and work until dinner on what I called "business stuff." I never thought of it in these terms, but in effect I had two workdays each day, one on the manager's schedule and one on the maker'…
I'm sorry if this is an unsatisfying answer, but if you mean convincingly pitched, I couldn't answer a question like that without disclosing the long-term plans of startups that would prefer to keep them secret. If you mean unconvincingly pitched, it would probably be the applications we get from people who've discovered new power sources that violate the laws of physics.
Can you say where the scariest and most ambitious convincing pitch was on the following scale? 1) We're going to build the next Facebook! 2) We're going to found the next Apple! 3) Our product will create sweeping political change! This will produce a major economic revolution in at least one country! (Seasteading would be change on this level if it worked; creating a new country successfully is around the same level…
I don't think this scale applies so well in the healthcare vertical. Any major healthcare breakthrough is going to hit the latter half of 6 at least a bit, but I'm not sure that those all induce changes that scale above 5.
I'm sorry if this is an unsatisfying answer, but if you mean convincingly pitched, I couldn't answer a question like that without disclosing the long-term plans of startups that would prefer to keep them secret. If you mean unconvincingly pitched, it would probably be the applications we get from people who've discovered new power sources that violate the laws of physics.
Can you say where the scariest and most ambitious convincing pitch was on the following scale? 1) We're going to build the next Facebook! 2) We're going to found the next Apple! 3) Our product will create sweeping political change! This will produce a major economic revolution in at least one country! (Seasteading would be change on this level if it worked; creating a new country successfully is around the same level…
"We want to make our own rockets and spaceships from scratch. But that's just the beginning, to pave the way to settling Mars and making it affordable for middle-class customers to relocate to Mars." I imagine if Elon Musk had pitched SpaceX for YC, it would be a strong candidate for this.
Yeah, pretty much any of his recent ideas/companies are "frighteningly ambitious". I do wonder how YC would handle someone that is as ambitious and skilled as Musk, but without his financial success. (Un?)Fortunately for them I think that is a pretty rare combination, so they probably don't have to worry too much.
It is a mantra here that there is an enormous amount of timing and luck involved in creating a successful startup.
I would expect the majority of people with Musk's skill and ambition to lack his level of financial success. Certainly the percentages will be better than the general population, but it's not guaranteed or even likely.
I'm sorry if this is an unsatisfying answer, but if you mean convincingly pitched, I couldn't answer a question like that without disclosing the long-term plans of startups that would prefer to keep them secret. If you mean unconvincingly pitched, it would probably be the applications we get from people who've discovered new power sources that violate the laws of physics.
Appreciate the honesty in revealing that the biggest idea you've been pitched you can't actually talk about. But how about not taking the easy way out and instead answering what is the most frighteningly ambitious idea you have been convincingly pitched that you can talk about?
You can't compare comic book superheroes to normal people. :)
You kinda can. Life isn't a comic book, and if you saw Elon Musk when he was 15, he wouldn't have any special aura of destiny glowing around him. I'm not saying that everyone can grow up to be Elon Musk, but he didn't have any sort of special license which allowed him to do it, either. In the end, superheroes are composed of people who try to become superheroes even though the rest of the world spends the first decad…
Great point. And if you look at Elon's record, he's shown a pattern of setting increasingly ambitious goals after working his way through (relatively) easier projects -- e.g., going from two software startups into hacking hardware, going from trying to contract with existing Russian rockets to designing and building his own rockets, going from modifying an existing car into an electric to designing and building his own electric car from scratch.
Eliezer, I believe you just created the Yudkowsky Ambition scale. My startup, http://automicrofarm.com/ , rates between a 3 and a 5, depending on how successful it becomes, in my opinion.
Also, I think you should rework the Yudkowsky Ambition scale a bit: * 3 and 4 are really on the same level, just interchangeable * 6 should really be an 8 or a 9, since it enables 7, 8 and perhaps 9 * the whole scale should be expanded so that 2-10 become 11-20, and 1 becomes e.g. a weekend hack that can bring in enough revenue to buy me a new toy every once in a while.
I think it would be fair to qualify it as a log scale :)
There is a useful tool to suggest the best times to post a new thread: http://hnpickup.appspot.com Is anyone aware of something similar which breaks this down by type of thread?
I must have used that for my show HN post. I was wondering why it was almost a dead response, While I have seen good response for similar show HN posts. anyways the post is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4495098
Imagine a table with a 3 course meal laid out...it's nice. Now imagine a table with a 100 course meal. You'll still eat only three plates of food before you're full but you'd still prefer the 100 course table.