> The work from prototype to product is an order of magnitude more than prototype alone.
The risk from zero to prototype is an order of magnitude more than the risk from prototype to product.
The risk from zero to prototype is an order of magnitude more than the risk from prototype to product.
Dude, it might take a few weeks to work out if a big project is even viable in a large company.
Prototyping a full product is not the easiest part of the big project by a long shot. Prototyping is when you find and create the constraints, reduce the chaos and make the project legible so other people can work on it.
If you do it right, it should make it easier for other people to work on the project not harder.
The older I get, and the more I work on aspects of trying to build businesses, products, and services, the more I lament the loss of a kind of service-oriented ethos that truly makes societies great and that seems to only be "refreshed" (in America, in particular) by the darkest of times*. Here, I think of the people who went through the first half of the 20th century in comparison to the MBAs and similarly naively "optimizing" agents elsewhere in important / controlling positions in current society.
Game theory 'says' that anyone can choose D(efect)-heavy strategies, and in many environments, profit heavily, personally (aka, "The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do..."). But, a society with too many such players is not long for this world.
* Much as was said by a certain Founder about the "tree of liberty" - many of the Founders, including even TJ, who could be quite self-interested, understood that liberty requires responsibility and sacrifice ...
This dude is more than justified in being disappointed. The value added by de-risking a product of this size is massive.