

Geek business myths - prakash
http://rondam.blogspot.com/2006/10/top-ten-geek-business-myths.html

======
madair
He lost me at "[Microsoft] has never had a single brilliant idea in its entire
history".

Criticizing the company is one thing. Pointing out the flaws fine. Anger at
bad behavior fine. Even laughing at dumb mistakes, that's not gonna rile me.

But denying the brilliance of the company and people who built the powerhouse
that is Microsoft? That, my friend is a far better candidate for number one in
the list of top ten geek business myths.

~~~
TJensen
My read of that was not that Microsoft wasn't a brilliant company, they just
did not have any brilliant product ideas. Instead, they took ideas from others
and did brilliant marketing.

The point being that a really amazing idea is a very small percentage of what
it takes to make a really successful business.

~~~
madair
All I did was quote what he said.

The paragraph is about ideas. If he meant product ideas I would hope he would
say so, but no, he includes "Page rank, text-only ads, massive parallel
implementation on cheap hardware" in the brief bit of Google worship. Only one
of those is a product in the simplistic sense.

Hate on Microsoft all you want, but failing to recognize their ideas is gonna
be a little limiting is what I gotta say.

~~~
TJensen
I'm not MS-hating. I tend to agree with the article that very few companies do
something completely new, including MS and Google.

MS did a brilliant job marketing. Regardless of whether you agree with their
tactics, they executed on them in an amazing way.

Google had a really good technology that by itself would have amounted to
nothing. However, they executed very well on the business side. Now people say
"Alta-who? Isn't Vista from Microsoft?"

The point is that, as technologists, we get really wrapped up in the cool
technology we are building, but that is a minuscule part of making a
successful business. I've even been involved in a startup where it was
actually detrimental, because everybody patted themselves on the back so
often, they forgot they needed customers.

~~~
whacked_new
One need look no further than recent history to find evidence of this better
than anyone can hypothesize about: VHS vs. Betamax. Tesla vs. Edison.

Vision is important. A good example of someone who deftly handles both tech
and business is like Wolfram, but he's out of our league; most of us, anyway.

Fascinating read about Wolfram's embarkation into business:
<http://www.stephenwolfram.com/interviews/88-fortune/>

------
WilliamLP
> One of the ironies of the programming world is that using Lisp is vastly
> more productive than using pretty much any other programming language, but
> successful businesses based on Lisp are quite rare.

Citation is needed. Paul Graham doesn't count.

~~~
10ren
Their rarity is clearly true. As for the grandiose assertion of superiority,
it's worth noting the context: _Lisp programmers never develop the social
skills needed to work effectively as a member of a team._

Fred Brooks didn't see Lisp as a silver bullet, which a "vastly more
productive" language would be. I'm sure he talks about functional languages
specifically in his retrospective essay "Still no silver bullet" (or something
like that).

------
baddox
He instantly destroyed any chance at credibility with his senseless bashing of
Microsoft.

------
10ren
_...patent filings. It's not hard to do once you learn how (get the Nolo Press
book "Patent it Yourself"). You'll do a better job than most patent attorneys
and save yourself a lot of money._

I have that book. It's quite good (and very encouraging), but I find it not
very helpful for software patents (eg. it wouldn't help much for patenting
PageRank). I agree that "most patent attorneys" wouldn't do a good job on a
software patent, but the idea is to go to one who specializes in them (another
plus for the Valley) - like the one that Google used (it's on the patent).

------
etherael
Was the first question that sprung to mind for anyone else on a few of these
not whether it was accurate or not, but whether it actually opens an
exploitable space?

Myth #6 particularly, I have a lot of reason not to doubt this, and if true it
reads to me like "People are so incompetent by and large that outside the
structure of a very large bureaucracy nothing will ever get done". The author
even goes so far as to actually cite a counter example of exactly what I'm
talking about with lisp efficiency.

------
zxcvb
He made mainly good points. It is true to say that Microsoft isn't innovative.
They buy innnovation rather than spawn it. It is true to say PHD's aren't an
automatic respect earner, in fact they aren't really useful unless you are
doing something specific with them (of course you could always argue how the
soft skills are important, you should already have them if you have undergrad
anyway).

Other than the MS thing (which I think is right) I don't see how this guy is
far off the mark?

~~~
zxcvb
I don't understand why this would be downvoted. I wasn't rude or obnocious in
any way, I just stated my opinions on the post.

If you think I'm wrong then tell me why rather than trying to silence me. This
isn't reddit.

------
miloshh
What a dumb asshole. Everything in the article is either banal, a straw-man,
or very questionable, which contrasts a lot with his tone.

This guy somehow luckily got into a position of power where he is allowed to
invest other people's money. Nobody would ever listen to him if it wasn't for
that twist of fate.

~~~
miloshh
Downvoters, please explain what is good in the article.

~~~
jibiki
Generally speaking, an "asshole" is someone who is excessively inconsiderate
and self-centered. No evidence is provided to support this assertion. I didn't
down vote you, but your comment is essentially an unjustified and unnecessary
personal attack.

~~~
miloshh
I apologize for the personal attack. However, the author insulted, without
much argument, so many groups at once (geeks, Microsoft, people that
appreciate the value of ideas, Ph.D.s, etc.) that I would claim there is some
ground for calling him an asshole.

I still think a community should listen to people with insight more than to
people with money (especially if it isn't his own money, as in the case of a
VC).

~~~
zxcvb
He didn't insult phd's or geeks and depending on how you look at it he didn't
insult MS.

~~~
miloshh
You say that based on what? Did you read it?

"The only thing a Ph.D. means is that you're not a moron, and you're willing
to put up with the bullshit it takes to slog your way through a Ph.D. program
somewhere." If he instead said that it is neither necessary nor sufficient to
have a Ph.D. for task X, I would actually agree. But that would be too banal
to catch attention.

"Microsoft has never had a single brilliant idea in its entire history.
Microsoft has achieved success largely by seeking out and destroying other
people's brilliant ideas." Depending how you look at it, seriously?

"The idea is very nearly irrelevant." If he instead said that he as an
investor has no time/ability to tell good ideas from bad ones, it would have
been reasonable, but this way it is insulting to people that work with ideas.

~~~
10ren
As someone who works with ideas, I agree with him very much that ideas are a
dime a dozen. It's the work on the idea that is valuable - and therefore the
people who do that work.

Unfortunately the term "idea" is flexible. At one extreme, it can mean a
precisely worked out and implemented design or _concept_ (like PageRank), or
at the other extreme, it could mean a wish (like "wouldn't it be cool to fly
like a bird!" - which would be awesome btw).

~~~
miloshh
Yes, I completely agree that there are many bad ideas (or even some whose
quality cannot even be measured). But that is different from saying they are
irrelevant.

I have seen many bad ideas, but I have also seen very smart, hard-working
people stuck on a problem for a few months, while they really needed a new
idea to move forward.

Also, if a good idea saves you a month of hard work, it is worth exactly as
much as the month of hard work, isn't it?

In academia, smart, hardworking people are a dime a dozen, and a huge success
is usually at the end of a string of many good ideas. I don't know mch about
building a company, but I doubt it is very different.

~~~
10ren
I'm not saying there are good and bad ideas. I'm saying there are ideas that
are questions and there are ideas that are answers.

The inspiration of "how can I fly like a bird?" is a great idea. But it's not
an answer. The only value it has is that it inspires you (and that's why we
have aircraft). It cannot save you a month of hard work.

But an answer that comes to you - why don't I swap the orders of the tubes, so
that the one that is slower to warm up is second, so that when it amplifies
something, there signal will be ready? It seems like a simple idea, but it
refers to specific parts of a known system. This idea is an answer. This kind
of idea could save you a month of hard work.

I'm saying that _question_ -like ideas are a dime a dozen - that's my
position. Does that fit in with your point of view? I think the article means
the same as me, but I don't know for sure.

~~~
miloshh
I'm totally with you on the "ideas as answers", but I feel the article is
bashing exactly these kinds of ideas - the ones that "geeks" tend to have.

There seems to be a number of people here that often say things like
"execution" or "knowing what customers want" are what matters, as if those
weren't composed of many good ideas, too.

~~~
10ren
I just reskimmed the article's comments on ideas, and I think you're
overlooking his nuanced point of view on "brilliant ideas". For "business"
(that's the scope of his comments) the key is being useful to a customer. He's
exaggerating his position to counter the geek tendency to ignore this aspect.

2\. _for every Google there are ten examples of companies that had killer
products that didn't sell_ \- and for 1/10 the idea alone is enough. Nuance.

3\. _Even on the off chance that you do manage to stumble across someone who
is as excited about your idea as you are_ \- most people don't appreciate your
idea (I can't even explain my current idea to myself half the time, as I'm
lost in the gritty detail - that's why some kind marketing is needed). [BTW: I
think that once your idea is successful, patent protection can be useful, esp
to have something to sell to acquirers.]

4\. _What matters is what your customers think._ \- it's true that to sell
something to someone, _they_ have to think it's worth buying. If you think
it's a brilliant idea, that's only helpful if it somehow translates (in some
way) to something that customers want. Maybe you can communicate your
conviction that it's great (like Jobs?), or (more likely) you use the idea to
provide them with something that they already value. For the latter, the
brilliance of the idea is utterly irrelevant to them; they don't even need to
know it exists.

9\. _The idea is very nearly irrelevant._ \- he's not saying the idea is
irrelevant, but almost irrelevant. Another nuance. He's saying it _is_
relevant - just much less than he, or the hypothetical audience he writes for,
would tend to weigh it.

