"Smart people can invent solutions to problems folks actually do have but don't know it yet. These solutions are usually doomed. ... It is nearly impossible to solve a problem for someone if they don't believe they have the problem, even if they really, really do."
I've long thought that to succeed in technology you need to do the clever stuff behind closed doors and deliver something tangible and understandable to the common man.
For example Google's map-reduce algorithms and idiosyncratic server setups. No one is going to buy into stuff as "crazy" as that, but if you do it internally you can deliver search results (and ads) that they'll appreciate without having to worry about the unorthodox manner in which they were produced.
"Smart people can invent solutions to problems folks actually do have but don't know it yet. These solutions are usually doomed. ... It is nearly impossible to solve a problem for someone if they don't believe they have the problem, even if they really, really do."
I've long thought that to succeed in technology you need to do the clever stuff behind closed doors and deliver something tangible and understandable to the common man.
For example Google's map-reduce algorithms and idiosyncratic server setups. No one is going to buy into stuff as "crazy" as that, but if you do it internally you can deliver search results (and ads) that they'll appreciate without having to worry about the unorthodox manner in which they were produced.