1/A thing I believe that few believe: Almost all Silicon Valley startup ideas from qualified founders = great ideas. But some are too early.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
2/Track startups over multiple decades, what you find is that most ideas do end up working. It’s much more a question of “when” not “if”.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
3/This is interesting for several reasons. First, it means that criticism of the form “that will never happen” is usually misguided & wrong.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
4/Second, it means that a much bigger risk for founders is “too early”, vs “wrong” or “too late”. Often doesn’t match feedback from others.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
5/To quote Peter Thiel, it is often better to be the last company to market (hit timing right & take down the entire market) vs the first.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
6/Third, when you have the timing right, you almost always feel like you’re too late. Terrified you’ve missed the window = great sign.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
7/When idea X has been in the air, with repeated attempts to build X, yet most customers are not yet doing/using X, it’s never too late.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
8/Fourth, founders by definition live in the future, see a world that doesn’t yet exist & try to make it so. Nailing timing = hardest thing.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
9/Which is often why more pragmatic founders end up building the big & important companies – the idealists were just too early.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
10/Fifth, therefore, most of the great ideas for the next two decades are already known. In labs, in failed startups, in big co prototypes.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
11/Those ideas are being dismissed now since the early attempts have’t worked. This has the opposite predictive value vs what people think.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
12/Quoting @GreatDismal, the future is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed – or it’s not yet distributed at all. But it is here.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
13/The key question is: What ideas are widely dismissed today due to having been tried & failed? Answer is the codex to the next 20 years.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) August 21, 2014
