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> the downsides of a false negative and less than the downsides of a false positive

As a consumer, yes. As a founder, there is an opportunity cost to not founding the next Googlebook.

Even if just a consumer, buying unnecessary expensive 3D TV just costs like max additional $1000 once, meanwhile missing Internet is huge.

There's also an opportunity cost to building a business around a technology that doesn't catch on. Looking only at companies that created "the next big thing" is survivorship bias. For every Elon Musk/Tesla story, you've got multiple people who bet big and lost on something like hydrogen cars.

Also, I'd argue that most business aren't founded on some bleeding edge technology. It's a false dichotomy to think that all successful founders embrace new technology and all skeptical founders are doomed to fail. There are plenty of businesses built around doing the same thing everyone else is doing, just faster, easier, or cheaper. Sure a skeptical founder may not create the next Googlebook, but I don't think that really matters.

Yeah but a broken clock could do the same thing

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