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.
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.
Besides, that's just changing the argument, it's pretty dumb to think they don't have great product ideas too, lol, e.g. Microsoft Research?
But then we get into that happy place where there is no new idea under the sun. After all, we can take apart just about any 'new' idea and find a rich lineage. It is in only the most rare of cases that anything is truly new. It's the fruition of an idea that's usually the thing that is recognized at large, and that is often not at the origin anyway.
Hacker News articles cast an eye on the fruition of business ideas often enough to say it's predominant here. And that's what this post wants to be about. No matter which way you put it, FAIL ;-)
sorry , there is content here, but had to mod you down because of that last word. I actually have NEVER seen that word here in all my reading, to the point where i took it for granted. Please keep that word off HN. Thanks.
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.
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.
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.
That is indeed brilliant, but I think it is pretty clear from context that Rondam was referring to brilliant technology and product ideas. The Google ideas he cites fall into those categories.
Microsoft's most brilliant ideas were always about how to sell their products and maximize profits. A fascinating example of this is Gates' memo to Apple about licensing the Mac.
Common wisdom is that Windows became the standard because Apple did not license Mac technology. Very early on, Gates explained the rationale for this to Apple and even suggested potential partners for licensing agreements.
So it seems the "ideas" behind Mac OS were not as valuable as Gates' and Microsoft's business sense.
(If you want to cite Apple's resurgence as a refutation, I would argue that the maturation of Jobs' business sense is behind that. He has been brilliant in negotiating deals that favor Apple since his return, has done a better job competing on price than people realize, and has undeniably manufactured customer demand for Apple products.)
"text-only ads" are not really a technology or product idea. It's really closer to clever marketing, in terms of delivering what people want.
I think the most brilliant non-technical idea of Google is its PR. They seriously spend on it - not on telling people that Google is good, but in doing things that people will think are good and cool. Like free GMail.
I think they genuinely like to do it; but you can't run a billion dollar company without having a business justification for it - which is that people can switch search engines so easily, you better make them like you (it works on me). It's not just a nice to be - it's crucial for the very existence of the company, and it's justifiable to spend actual money on it.
Other companies provide cool free stuff - but not to the extent that Google does. They are exceptional in this. Microsoft could make billions even when hated by many; Google can't.
research.microsoft.com/otherplaces as well. Corporate-backed R&D, plain and simple. The only unfortunate thing is they are mostly hidden from the public eye, and the consumer market.
I don't get why so many people see Microsoft as antonymous to innovation. When it comes to innovative companies, nobody's bought more of them than Microsoft.
It's important to distinguish between being brilliant and having a brilliant idea. They are not the same. The folks at MS are undoubtedly brilliant (and ruthless and unethical, but that's another matter). But Microsoft as a company has not once produced what I would consider a brilliant innovation. In fact, it's arguable that Microsoft has been successful precisely because it has not tried to be innovative, but has instead followed the less technologically risky strategy of preying on the innovation of others.
If you want to dispute this, the most effective way would be to cite a counterexample. I've had this discussion with an awful lot of people over the years and so far no one has been able to come up with one.
1. C# -- Despite all its faults, it's a hell of a lot better than java and they've done some really interesting things with the CLR and type systems...
2. Photosynth & Seadragon are pretty cool.
3. XMLHTTP Request (what powers all this ajax stuff, that's microsoft)
4. Microsoft's birds eye view in their map applications.
5. A lot of the features that got dropped from VISTA were cool (new command line and the new file system)
6. The Microsoft intellimouse (best mouse ever made)
That's just a few off the top of my head... sure office & windows don't innovate too much; but microsoft access is a pretty important product because it solves a real business need (never really used it, but know tons of companies rely on it).
I agree these are "cool" but IMO they don't rise to the level of "brilliant". I suppose reasonable people could disagree. But I think everyone would agree that these ideas, whether they are "brilliant" or merely "cool" are not the source of Microsoft's success.
Well Microsoft's success comes from windows and office. I want to see anyone's brilliant innovations in those domains? The original spreadsheet, WYSIWG editing, and powerpoint all found the dominant design early on and have been going through refinement for years.
> 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.
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).
...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).
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.
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?
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.
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.
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).
"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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
Maybe they mean "execution" as opposed to "ideas as questions"? Or maybe not: I guess it's true that even with PageRank designed and implemented, it's a hell of a long way from a business, with many opportunities to mis-execute. To go from the idea of pagerank, to a working pagerank is also a lot of work. Edison's comment about 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration applies both to inventing and commercializing.
For myself, the inspiration of a product was instantaneous; the first working version took two hours; but it took a year of further iteration before my first sale. I think that's much more than 99% perspiration (though there were lots of little ideas along the way, and one brilliant suggestion of what to look at - from someone else - that changed everything).
I think pinning people down on what they mean by "idea" might clarify things.
"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?"
Still, ideas are nothing, any can have an idea, my idea is to set up a super cheap supermarket and become rich, the idea is worthless, it's all about the execution. Ideas are like talk, talk is cheap.
Even in academia, an idea is nothing if you can't execute it and produce good results. In terms of importance I would say that idea is worth 20% and execution is worth 80%.
Of course I read it. I still think none of this is even remotely insulting. PHD doesnt mean your good, MS dont spawn brilliant ideas, and ideas are pretty much nothing, as paul graham seems to agree to.
Various groups of people care more or less about how you say something versus what you say. This forum is further to the first than other programming forums out there.
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.