"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
Thoughtful critique is good, but this post breaks the guidelines and falls outside the kind of thing we're going for here. I know it's the internet default generally, but please be more thoughtful when posting comments to HN, especially about other people's work.
If you don't realize what's going on, that companies pick their founding myth based on which story sells the best rather than which story occurred on the earliest calendar date, it's very easy to get a false picture of how good startup ideas originate.
It was always a business-first mindset in an area of high growth.
That one short video filmed in 1997 should be a masterclass by itself.
Such an impressive list of deft moves that he made (in a range of different areas) one after another between '94 and 2000 to set Amazon on a path to meteoric growth.
I'd also add that in his stints at different firms pre-Amazon he was quite clearly an outlier among high-achievers.
Uber 'bought' their market - it might not even be viable when they run out of dumping money and have to raise prices.
I think there might be some opportunity in this guys startup with some pivoting.
Also I think there was some funniness on the feedback: Doctor used 'cost' as an excuse, but it may have simply been that the product was not hugely valuable.
Maybe for common drugs it won't help, but there are a zillion drugs out there, maybe doctors want a good reference.
The revenue model he didn't articulate comes from the drug companies. If Doctors used his tool, drug companies might pay for it in some way.
Finally, I have to say 200K lines of code sounds like a lot ...
For example, a recent Musk biography spent maybe a page on the part where he became successful, and a Jobs one just a paragraph or two.
I'd like to see a compilation of these details.
In a certain harsh sense, if you're gullible enough to believe in those stories you're probably not ready to start your own business.
It's hard to say what exactly can be learned from such stories.
He had an idea, that seemed good, and invested $40k that apparently he could afford to loose. He made some mistakes that could be avoided in hindsight (like everyone trying something new). The dreams of being billionaire and stuff is just to make the reading fun (it did for me).
It just _has_ to be satire, though!