Back when the armed forces were weirdly against each other (such as tanks versus horses) it was Sir Basil Liddel-Hart who pointed out, after WWI, that a diverse tool box was a good thing, rather than an army of all tanks or all planes or all horses.
It was George Orwell, in the days of poetry, before transistor radios, who said that when you wanted to express something, the pop culture poetry of Kipling would spring to mind. Similarly, f I were on the brink of doing something scary, then the platitude of boldness would come into my mind. As a tool.
"Fortune favors the bold," said a few bold who survived.
Hundreds who died in the process did not have a chance to say anything.
Thus, all we have is consistent evidence that boldness works.
Except it's a perfect case for survivorship bias.
It's what we don't see that matters.
I guess one could easily apply it to a better part of the whole startup ecosystem. The big winners sure were bold. So were swaths of those who failed miserably.
That's one of the reasons why taking advice from the biggest figures in the industry is not that much of a good idea. The most recent I've heard was Elon Musk's insistence on soliciting critical feedback and paying attention to it.
I'd say being yourself is the easy part - knowing yourself is the challenge. and my only advice there is taking more orbits around the sun...
Back when the armed forces were weirdly against each other (such as tanks versus horses) it was Sir Basil Liddel-Hart who pointed out, after WWI, that a diverse tool box was a good thing, rather than an army of all tanks or all planes or all horses.
It was George Orwell, in the days of poetry, before transistor radios, who said that when you wanted to express something, the pop culture poetry of Kipling would spring to mind. Similarly, f I were on the brink of doing something scary, then the platitude of boldness would come into my mind. As a tool.
"Fortune favors the bold," said a few bold who survived.
Hundreds who died in the process did not have a chance to say anything.
Thus, all we have is consistent evidence that boldness works.
Except it's a perfect case for survivorship bias.
It's what we don't see that matters.
I guess one could easily apply it to a better part of the whole startup ecosystem. The big winners sure were bold. So were swaths of those who failed miserably.
That's one of the reasons why taking advice from the biggest figures in the industry is not that much of a good idea. The most recent I've heard was Elon Musk's insistence on soliciting critical feedback and paying attention to it.
Not really a paragon of his own advice, I'd say.