Impossible to comment without you providing specifics of the things that founders do that are so obviously wrong.
You're also giving way, WAY, WAAAY too much credit to "experts".
Two prominent counter-examples: AirBnB and SpaceX.
If AirBnB founders asked anyone involved in hotel industry, they would tell them it'll surely fail. The laws, the liability (what if someone trashes the place?), who will want to sleep in stranger's bed? who will allow strangers to sleep in their bed?
And yet AirBnB is amazingly successful.
Not because those were not valid concerns but because they were overblown.
Same with SpaceX: it was ridiculed on principle (what does internet guy know about rockets?) and it was ridiculed for their methodology (fail fast, iterate quickly, blow up rockets to learn from failures).
Armstrong, the guy who landed on the moon, testified before Congress telling them to not award SpaceX any contracts because they will surely fail.
Doesn't get more "expert" or more wrong than that.
Also, framing "fake it until you make it" as "manipulative" suggests that you're coming at this with some chip on the shoulder. The nature of learning is that first you don't know and then you know.
If only experts could do stuff then there would be no experts. Even Einstein didn't know physics.
> Impossible to comment without you providing specifics of the things that founders do that are so obviously wrong.
I don't find it impossible at all. One example that everyone knows is Theranos. Elizabeth Holmes was a know-nothing with total conviction -- exactly the kind of young person Paul Graham lionizes in his post. She dropped out of Stanford at 19 to found a medical equipment company! When tons of experts believed that the samples Theranos relied upon were too small to yield accurate results! Which turned out to be true!!
There are, of course, a handful of businesses that have done quite well and defied all expectations in the process. But they are the exception rather than the rule. Most startups fail, and it's not at all obvious that being completely sure of yourself despite (because of?) your ignorance is an advantage.
I think the Airbnb story is made up. Or at least, I doubt many people told them it would never work. That's just something founders add to their story to make it more appealing.
It was basically a web 2.0 clone of VRBO which was already worth billions by the time Airbnb was getting started.
Why were people telling them that a proven business model wasn't going to work?
You're also giving way, WAY, WAAAY too much credit to "experts".
Two prominent counter-examples: AirBnB and SpaceX.
If AirBnB founders asked anyone involved in hotel industry, they would tell them it'll surely fail. The laws, the liability (what if someone trashes the place?), who will want to sleep in stranger's bed? who will allow strangers to sleep in their bed?
And yet AirBnB is amazingly successful.
Not because those were not valid concerns but because they were overblown.
Same with SpaceX: it was ridiculed on principle (what does internet guy know about rockets?) and it was ridiculed for their methodology (fail fast, iterate quickly, blow up rockets to learn from failures).
Armstrong, the guy who landed on the moon, testified before Congress telling them to not award SpaceX any contracts because they will surely fail.
Doesn't get more "expert" or more wrong than that.
Also, framing "fake it until you make it" as "manipulative" suggests that you're coming at this with some chip on the shoulder. The nature of learning is that first you don't know and then you know.
If only experts could do stuff then there would be no experts. Even Einstein didn't know physics.