The Dumb Idea Paradox: Why great ideas often start out by sounding dumb. at andrewchen

In a 2010 essay, Chris Dixon wrote, "The next big thing will start out looking like a toy." Provocative. What he meant was that new technologies are often dismissed as toys because they undershoot user needs, and that that ones that make it out of toy phase and into the zeitgeist do so because they ride external forces.

By definition, you will likely succeed a vanishingly-small percentage of the time, but—as the saying goes—that’s a feature, not a bug. The point is to venture—fistfuls of money in hand—at the furthest extremes of capitalism, hoping to stumble upon that rare, proper intersection of technology and commerciality.By design, most investments will miss t... See more