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I remember one town hall where he was asked "If you had to start over again, what sort of company would you start?" and his answer was "I wouldn't, all the good ideas are already taken."

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That's genuinely astonishing in its degree of ignorance.

Why? It’s the same thing DHH says. He’s never going to have a better idea than rails and basecamp. Tobi is the same with Shopify

There's a difference between having the humility to admit that you might not be able to hit another home run, and between claiming that "all the good ideas are taken." At best, the latter is an admission of a lack of a desire to even try anymore, at worst it shows a stunning lack of curiosity and creativity.

To assert that "all the good ideas are taken" is ridiculous on its face. How can anyone possibly know that? How can anyone even know that the number of possible good ideas is finite?

It's a thing that has been said by various people throughout history and it has always been a ludicrous assertion before. Why does he think it's different now?

If what he meant was "I'm out of good ideas", that's different, of course.

That sounds too dumb to be true. As in, is there some missing context that this quote was forklifted from?

Nope, it was just a QA town hall at the old Ottawa office. I think everyone was pretty confused by the remark.

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