entangld

This was obvious. What took so long?

His $1500 dollar startup is just the store front for his $100k+ medical education. There is already a staggering demand for any and all medical services.

Not as innovative as the headline made it sound.

Since when is the US government a charity? Taxes are not optional.

Most major donors contribute to things they can put their name on like buildings (see Stanford campus). It's difficult for even most charities to cover operating costs (i.e. labor) with only donations. Most have to apply for grants or do lots of funny numbers to keep their administration costs (i.e. labor) low.

>>The smart always (most of the time) find a job or a way to live.<<

You're talking about expedience not intelligence.

Isn't a very large proportion of American labor unskilled? Real unemployment is always worse than the figure they give (when you account for people who stopped looking).

Does part of corporate "efficiency" include billions of dollars in bonuses?

That doesn't seem very efficient to me. The effect of large bonuses on the cost of administration seems a bit high.

How do giant stacks of uninvested cash in corporate coffers improve the economy? I wish someone could explain this.

You have to scroll down to see them. It wasn't obvious at first.

I'm not advocating fuzzy logic, just like the people who believe math is needed to make sense aren't advocating bad statistics.

I don't want to get metaphysical here, but this is starting to meld into something a little too abstract.

An argument doesn't need to make perfect sense in order to make sense. With math you might try to make it perfect, but even mathematical projections can be guesswork. With a certain level of uncertainty, it's not about the math. And when you're looking toward the future, you're mostly using theories. Maybe the theories don't become clear until they've proven themselves, but we can still understand them, because you can have a reasonable amount of uncertainty and still make sense.

So what you're saying is you could listen to someone and agree that what they're saying is logical but it doesn't make sense?

I'm not being a jerk, but could you please give me an example of something logical that doesn't make sense?

I'm saying mathematics might be sufficient to express logic, but it ain't necessary.

Geez all the downvotes for a statement that isn't even controversial?

Arithmetic is required to be logical? I doubt it.

People who use technical terms are generally specialists. When you're speaking to specialists in another field, or the general population you just have to use general language.

Edison had a team of people working for him. I don't know how much you've read about him, but he's not exactly known for being like Tesla.

I'm pretty sure the carbon filament in the light bulb was not Edison's particular creation.

In the Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell said most people are referred by acquaintances, not close ties. Networks give you access to these people and their information is not perfect.

I'm only arguing your first point that networks expand returns on ability. This is just like VC's in the startup world. There are some very good startups that get few meetings with big investors because they have no connections. Even if you have a good product (or are smart), you can go unnoticed. Network expands ability, but the network's vision is limited to the acquaintances of the few people who are in it.

I think you're logic is a little too strict.

Beginner positions, almost by definition, are lower responsibility and offer some leeway. Networks may expand returns on ability, but they can only guess at the real ability of a new person. Resumes anyone? Many startups right now say they are looking for "cultural fit" first and foremost, so even ability has limits. It would be convenient to assume that there are so many high skilled and irreplaceable people, but they're probably at the top of organizations, not the entry-level.

We're talking about people getting first chances which requires the networks to take a chance as well. No one knows how good anyone is until they're actually working.

I don't think it's that much of a stretch. When you're poor and you're around other poor people there is no one there to recognize your potential and bring you into the fold (job, connections, inform you of opportunities available). You're just a clever person other poor people know.

There's a big difference between knowing small business owners in the neighborhood and knowing friends of wealthy and or well connected people. When you're poor you are isolated. You have to do everything from scratch and it takes a LONG time to figure out by yourself, what generations of people have already figured out.

The Harvard example could easily be a proxy for other institutions frequented by the elite.

That still isn't a very good answer to the conventional wisdom of "Don't worry about telling people your ideas."

Tell people, then execute faster? If you're in stealth mode it wouldn't matter.

You're right about all of that.

But it's a different story when they use your own words to describe the concept of it. It was practically my pitch describing their website.

Few people come up with the same ideas using the same words. That's just not likely. Conceptualizing is not easy. There are a lot of different ways to describe Twitter and Quora. People describe things differently. I don't think it was random.

Commission = one month's bill is pretty common.

This is the problem with metaphors. They get misunderstood and misapplied.

I didn't mean a general direction, I meant a specific one. Like a telephone is different from a cellphone. Landlines have only so much potential. You may attribute cellphones to implementation, but someone had to figure it out.

How many millions of man hours would make AirBnB worth more than Groupon? Not the best example, but I'm sure you get it. Ideas have limits, but so does implementation.

That was a very tiny link at the bottom of the page ->"Lib". Thanks for the link. I wonder what their UX person says about those links.

I'd really like a rolling reader submitted list on the main page, but this is also good.

Reality trumps imagination. Of course, but especially because it's easier to measure.

Creativity, innovation and the like are difficult for humans to quantify. So we get in arguments like "ideas are worthless" and debates over the importance of design.

But our economy is becoming much more based on intellectual property, and I don't believe this kind of thinking, will help us in the future.

I think all three of those criteria are good. I'd rank them by:

customer needs>feasibility>profitability

Agreed on your other thoughts as well.

An idea is a direction. If he wants to move forward with the instantiation he's moving forward in the same direction. That's like saying paraphrasing isn't plagiarism. It's not the same if it's different.

You can tell this happens because ten startups may start with the same "idea" but end up with completely different concrete solutions

Airbnb is an idea. If you do it a little bit different it's still the same idea. The value lies in what the customer receives, not the man-years. If you've built something with large customer benefit then you've done something. But the customer benefit comes from the direction the original idea took.

Now that you've presumably done some of that work, the core original idea remains as useless as ever

If the idea has changed completely then yes, but that's probably a different idea. Google search is still Google search even though they've added countless man-years to it.

He wants the idea because he wants to solve the same customer problem in the same way. Especially if the original idea unveiled a problem that was ignored. An idea can often identify a problem. No amount of implementation can do that.

This is a reaction to my current frustration. My ex-partner said ideas are only worth 2%, technology 5% and implementation 93%. But he wants to know if he take the idea and continue to work on it on his own.

So I said "If ideas are so cheap, why don't you think of a better one?" <crickets>

It's getting to the point where people say it without thinking.

You had me up until you mentioned Zuckerberg.

I'm just glad he believes in the existence of great ideas. This is a further extension of the evolution from idea + market fit > product > business.

It's easy for a person with expertise in one area to feel his/her ability is the most important.

The dilemma of defining smart as "can figure out what to do" is that it puts no limitations on intelligence.

Some of these skills are not mastered for multiple reasons: emotional ones like fear and apprehension or lack of familiarity with cultural differences, expectations, etc...

Smart people still have limits.