I think Dorsey & Twitter is a good example. He had the underlying concepts in his head from the time he was 12 years old and long before Web 2.0. When he was brought onto Odeo, the idea was to be manifested in the form of SMS alerts. I find it hard to believe that he had what we know today as Twitter in his mind at the outset. Nor do I think his intention was for the service to be used by citizens in a fight against oppressive democracies or in other scenarios which one could reasonably assume had a truly global impact.
Contrast that with the startups coming out of incubators boasting about how they're going to change the world with their.....t-shirt recommendation engine app. Or something of the sort.
And who knows? It might actually be a kick-ass product, have phenomenal revenues & truly help people. But it's not going to change the world.
Maybe it's just my issue with the phrase but I think "changing the world" has become one of those trite, overused Web 2.0 expressions that have become as hollow as a dead tree trunk to early adopters & end users. They've simply heard it too many times before and they know not every company is going to change the world.
The other thing that's troublesome is that it's discouraging people from building cool stuff because they think it's not "changing the world." I've already seen questions on Quora from folks who think their ideas (or even existing businesses) are invalid because they don't feel the company's going to become the next Google or Apple; even though, as someone already mentioned, Larry & Sergey were ready to sell at $1 million for the technology. That doesn't sound to me like someone who wanted to change the world from the very outset.
I don't know. Maybe it's just my issue with the phrase but I imagine there are at least a few folks that feel the same way. Apologies for the tangent.
Contrast that with the startups coming out of incubators boasting about how they're going to change the world with their.....t-shirt recommendation engine app. Or something of the sort.
And who knows? It might actually be a kick-ass product, have phenomenal revenues & truly help people. But it's not going to change the world.
Maybe it's just my issue with the phrase but I think "changing the world" has become one of those trite, overused Web 2.0 expressions that have become as hollow as a dead tree trunk to early adopters & end users. They've simply heard it too many times before and they know not every company is going to change the world.
The other thing that's troublesome is that it's discouraging people from building cool stuff because they think it's not "changing the world." I've already seen questions on Quora from folks who think their ideas (or even existing businesses) are invalid because they don't feel the company's going to become the next Google or Apple; even though, as someone already mentioned, Larry & Sergey were ready to sell at $1 million for the technology. That doesn't sound to me like someone who wanted to change the world from the very outset.
I don't know. Maybe it's just my issue with the phrase but I imagine there are at least a few folks that feel the same way. Apologies for the tangent.