Innovation is almost insane by definition: most people view any truly innovative idea as stupid, because if it was a good idea, somebody would have already done it. So, the innovator is guaranteed to have more natural initial detractors than followers.
—
Ben Horowitz in “Why We Prefer Founding CEOs”
Ben Horowitz in “Why We Prefer Founding CEOs”
Don Schenck
on 15 Sep 10Not only do most of us believe this, but I’m going to guess that most people make the same mistake I* make all the time: *I am my biggest doubter/detractor. I’ve talked myself out of some incredible ideas.
David Andersen
on 15 Sep 10“most people view any truly innovative idea as stupid, because if it was a good idea, somebody would have already done it.“
There’s a canard. All you have to do is spend 10 minutes thinking about innovation and how/why it occurs to realize that it’s not possible for all good ideas to have been already done. Time, money, and the nature of human behavior limit the amount of innovation that can occur at any one time.
Colin8ch
on 15 Sep 10Great quote! I agree with previous comments, Step 1: Battle your own self doubt and sell yourself on the idea enough to innovate… Step 2: Get buy in from all the detractors.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, yet when someone does something drastically different (innovates) the inventor and their invention is regarded by the majority as insane
Scott
on 15 Sep 10If that entirely inaccurate definition of insanity were true, why would persistence and perseverance be celebrated? Why would a sane person try anything more than once if only the insane thinks that one day the result will be different? Why do people every day apply for a job, pitch for funding, ask for a sale, ask for a date, cast a fishing lure, or do any of the hundreds of things sane people do again and again with the hope that one day the result will be different?
I haven’t seen any legal, clinical, nor linguistic definition that says anything about this definition of insanity. I’m starting a movement to set things right and rid the world of this crazy, insane, “The definition of…” quote.
David Andersen
on 16 Sep 10...but the article where the quote comes from is great!
Deltaplan
on 16 Sep 10I think he makes a point anyway, because you have to separate the idea from the realization.
Most good ideas come much sooner than the time by which they can be made true efficiently. Leonardo Da Vinci has had many great ideas, but at that time science wasn’t advanced enough to make him able to effectively build all that he had imagined.
Therefore, great inventions are often based on good ideas that aren’t really new, but that the progress has finally made possible to build.
What makes people think you’re insane, is when you end up with an idea that is so new, that it is even unthinkable to imagine ways to build a real product out of it.
As Marcel Pagnol quoted it :
Deltaplan
on 16 Sep 10This also reminds me of an old TV show I’ve seen at the end of the 80’, there was a woman who was there to talk about some subject that I’ve forgotten, but first the interviewer asked her what her profession was. She said that she was working at the Patent Office. Being asked of what her job was more precisely (seems that the interviewer didn’t even have any idea about what a patent was…), she told him that her job was to review the descriptions of inventions that the inventors were submitting to the office.
Then, the unthinkable happened… The interviewer laughed at her, saying something like “what, inventions ? you’re kidding me ? you must not be working a lot then, cause there’s no inventions any more nowadays…”.
I guess he must have been strongly believing in the famous quote : “everything that can be invented has already been invented”...
This discussion is closed.