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Crazy New Ideas

paulgraham.com

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Re: Crazy New Ideas

#631

Post by pedalpete »

ammar_x wrote: post #592

The main idea of the article is that when someone who is a domain expert proposes an idea that seems wrong, there is a chance that this idea is a great idea because why would a smart person proposes a stupid idea? They must've known something. He says that in history, great ideas started like that. But he didn't provide examples. I didn't find the article practical because of that. It would have been a lot more usefu…

I think there are enough examples for and against.

He does give the example of Copernicus, I believe Louis Pasteur would be another good example. PG does say he is speaking mostly of maths, sciences, etc.

But there are also many examples where the domain experts missed the opportunities, and somebody else stepped in.

The AirBnB gang weren't domain experts in hospitality. Coinbase founder wasn't an expert in finance (though he was an expert in security I believe), Collison brothers weren't experts in credit cards, doesn't look like the founders of DoorDash were experts in hospitality or delivery.

Not to say PG is wrong, there is good logic to not dismissing ideas, and finding nuggets, but I think the model is being overfit. Or perhaps one wild ideas by domain experts doesn't negate the potential for wild ideas from non-domain experts.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#632

Post by spondyl »

I think Mighty is a reasonable hotfix on the face of it. Having said that, if the question is "How do we make the web less slow", the actual solution must be reducing inefficiencies in the web apps themselves. Mighty seems like the equivalent of saying your room is tidy because you've shoved all of your clothes in the wardrobe. It'll work but what happens when we need a Mighty for Mighty or something like that.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#633

Post by samatman »

gustavo-fring wrote: post #431
graeme wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! I wanted to write a positive comment but couldn’t put my finger on it. This is exactly what has me interested in Mighty: making things ever so slightly easier. I already have a fast computer, but I’d still like to try, as there is room for surprise. And the service suggests it is aimed at reducing all manner of friction in using a browser: tab management, etc This may or may not work but there seems to be…

Yeah but if you found out a quicker and more efficient way to stop people from reading HN, every business would want it because their workers would stop bloviating 4 hours a day for those who know what it is, and the rest of the world would continue on ignorant of it as it always has. But it's not worth anything. Sometimes you just can't clean up garbage. Graham has too many dishonest people in YC. They're like gollu…

This is not proof of what you think it is. It may be evidence but it isn't proof.

dang detaching off-topic subthreads is the opposite of mods opaquely fucking around with rankings. He explicitly detached the thread, and posted that he had done so. That's a judgement call which you're welcome to disagree with and I'm not going to affirm or second-guess because I don't care much.

As to the other: we don't know how HN sorts comments, but I would be surprised if it was as simple as the highest-valued comments floating to the top. It is far more likely given what we know about moderation goals, that controversial comments are penalized.

So maybe your comment got 50 upvotes and 20 downvotes? The mods don't want us making huge subthreads about stuff which people disagree about, for the most part: they want some of that, but anything which is drawing a lot of karma from both sides is that much more likely to draw low-quality replies.

Again, this isn't a comment about your comment: pretend I didn't read it, I barely did in fact.

But it certainly doesn't prove that dang put his thumb on the scale. The mods here seem to be pretty transparent about how everything works, without leaking actual formulas which are subject to change and could provide ammunition with which to game the system.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#634

Post by louissm_it »

geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

“For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.” - Dropbox

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#635

Post by dang »

qshaman wrote: post #272
merwanedr wrote: post #225

HN comment section pessimism is a new metric for evaluating your odds of success. "It's too expensive" or "Nobody needs it because we have X" on a project lead by a domain expert is not constructive criticism or conservatism, it's pure envy. PG isn't defending Mighty, Dropbox or Coinbase because he has skin in the game, but because he knows what the teams have achieved and what they could potentially achieve. I don't…

This is so common in SV, you are just being arrogant and salty in general, because people are showing how dumb, privacy unfriendly, and dangerous this product is, it has nothing to do with envy. Using Dropbox as an example is even worst, thats like saying "X celebrity is famous and smoke weed, then if I smoke weed, I will be famous". PG is clearly biased and he is just trying to get a return on his investment, thats…

This is so pitch-perfect an example of what pg used to call a middlebrow dismissal (which we reworked as 'shallow dismissal' on HN), upgraded to 2020-21 rage levels, that I'm not sure one could improve upon it as a parody. Is there any note it doesn't hit?

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#636

Post by zem »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #587
geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

I think of this as my "Kardashian problem". I don't understand why the Kardashians are famous or wealthy. I mean I get the mechanics of it - famous legal case -> sex tape -> reality TV show. But I don't understand how this works, or why it works. This isn't their problem. They are very wealthy, famous, and they obviously totally grok how their market works. This is my problem. I should not attempt to produce a mass-m…

the phrase "famous for being famous" sums it up nicely. it's a feedback loop.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#637

Post by bordercases »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #595
marcus_holmes wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think of this as my "Kardashian problem". I don't understand why the Kardashians are famous or wealthy. I mean I get the mechanics of it - famous legal case -> sex tape -> reality TV show. But I don't understand how this works, or why it works. This isn't their problem. They are very wealthy, famous, and they obviously totally grok how their market works. This is my problem. I should not attempt to produce a mass-m…

Luck seems to play a big role in the celebrity market

What locks celebrities in after they get big? Why isn't it perpetually volatile? Or if it is, what explains the rate of change in the volatility?

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#638

Post by llaolleh »

louissm_it wrote: post #634
geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

“For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.” - Dropbox - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

I knew this would show up again. It's a comment that will live in infamy.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#639

Post by zem »

sirsinsalot wrote: post #579
dvt wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. This is basically putting the cart before the horse and pretty much the definition of hindsight bias. We all know the BrandonM/Dropbox quip, but that's just a fun anecdote, not som…

> but if it succeeds, good on Suhail! Well, not exactly. There's plenty of people who have been successful at, frankly horrible things. I count this kind of "not your computer, ours" rent seeking change as "bad if successful".

i have a hard time classifying mighty as 'rent seeking' - they are providing you computational resources in return for money, not seeking some sort of gatekeeping money by virtue of owning a scarce or critical-path resource.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#640

Post by rainonmoon »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #587
geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

I think of this as my "Kardashian problem". I don't understand why the Kardashians are famous or wealthy. I mean I get the mechanics of it - famous legal case -> sex tape -> reality TV show. But I don't understand how this works, or why it works. This isn't their problem. They are very wealthy, famous, and they obviously totally grok how their market works. This is my problem. I should not attempt to produce a mass-m…

I sort of see where you're going with this, but a large part of the equation missing (at least in your outline; not to suggest you're ignorant of it) is 1) startup capital (they were already wealthy) and 2) a powerful and influential network. Their skill was leveraging these things, of course, so I'm not saying their success was inevitable, but even having those opportunities in place for Kris, Kim etc. to build on puts them far ahead of most people trying to enter the market. Maybe before trying to figure out how to appeal to the mass-market like a Kardashian, try figuring out how to appeal to a small but dynastically wealthy and famous market like a Kardashian ;)
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