I think there's a lot of survivorship bias in the statement that lame ideas turn out to be visionary.
Just because many successful companies are built on ideas that at first seemed ridiculous doesn't mean that ideas that seem ridiculous will be smash hits. Actually, most ideas that seem ridiculous are ridiculous.
If, however, a new market, technology or cultural bend turns up, an idea that exploits it might seem ridiculous because it breaks with social norm or accepted technological limitations but actually be viable. When Tesla started building electric cars they were ridiculed because few people understood that both the technology and the social acceptance was now at a point that made it possible. Had they started ten years prior the idea would probably have been ridiculous.
The trick is to be able to see the difference between the snakeoil salesmen, mad hatters and crazy inventors and the true visionaries. What makes this really difficult is that noone, including the founders, knows whether they're one or the other. There's a lot of luck and timing involved.
I'd also wager that the reason that mindblowingly successful companies often start out as seemingly ridiculous ideas is that if they don't have any competition in a niche that they can exploit. Microsoft, for example, were the first to sell software. IBM laughed them out of the room because software was just something that came with the hardware. The idea that you could sell software seemed as crazy as selling sand in Sahara. But because of a technological and cultural shift it was a good idea, and because it seemed ridiculous to "real" companies they had the market to themselves for the first vital years. Had they not been so lucky (or smart) with their timing noone would know who Bill Gates is.
I think you might be able to conclude the following:
"If you want merely to be well-off start a company that isn't based on a ridiculous idea. If you want a small chance of changing the world start a company based on a ridiculous idea"
I think the article more useful to VCs than to founders.
Good VCs worry about being pitched on the next Apple/Microsoft/Facebook/Google and passing on it because of their own prejudices or lack of vision. I see the article as an effort to consciously counter those prejudices.
But VCs have the luxury of being able to invest in a lot of companies. When you have that luxury, you can afford to say "let's let a few lame ideas in because they could grow huge".
You're right that potential founders don't have that luxury. Sinking 5-10 years of your life into a lame idea is overwhelmingly likely to have little payoff for the founder.
> "let's let a few lame ideas in because they could grow huge"."
Which seems to be the strategy used by most VCs anyway. The primary difference is that may not (at the time) see some of those companies/ideas as 'lame' themselves. But "invest in a large number because X will fail and we need one homerun" seems to be the prevailing MO.
I don't think the takeaway here was meant to be "lame ideas turn out to be visionary."
If anything, I would say the takeaway is that many ideas that seem lame are dismissed without truly understanding their potential, and that PG has made it a point to spend more time exploring their potential before deciding they are indeed lame.
Yep. Huge survivor bias both in the article and the comments here. Plenty of people talking about the time they turned down a job with early MS and came to regret it. We need some stories of the people that took a risk and failed miserably, because that's the far more common occurrence.
Just because many successful companies are built on ideas that at first seemed ridiculous doesn't mean that ideas that seem ridiculous will be smash hits. Actually, most ideas that seem ridiculous are ridiculous.
If, however, a new market, technology or cultural bend turns up, an idea that exploits it might seem ridiculous because it breaks with social norm or accepted technological limitations but actually be viable. When Tesla started building electric cars they were ridiculed because few people understood that both the technology and the social acceptance was now at a point that made it possible. Had they started ten years prior the idea would probably have been ridiculous.
The trick is to be able to see the difference between the snakeoil salesmen, mad hatters and crazy inventors and the true visionaries. What makes this really difficult is that noone, including the founders, knows whether they're one or the other. There's a lot of luck and timing involved.
I'd also wager that the reason that mindblowingly successful companies often start out as seemingly ridiculous ideas is that if they don't have any competition in a niche that they can exploit. Microsoft, for example, were the first to sell software. IBM laughed them out of the room because software was just something that came with the hardware. The idea that you could sell software seemed as crazy as selling sand in Sahara. But because of a technological and cultural shift it was a good idea, and because it seemed ridiculous to "real" companies they had the market to themselves for the first vital years. Had they not been so lucky (or smart) with their timing noone would know who Bill Gates is.
I think you might be able to conclude the following:
"If you want merely to be well-off start a company that isn't based on a ridiculous idea. If you want a small chance of changing the world start a company based on a ridiculous idea"