It should be noted that the concept of originality and its associated "mighty pioneer Vs lowly copiers" mindset is mainly a Western cultural artifact. For example in China during most of its history if you wanted to become, say, a renowned painter, you were expected to spend your formative years copying the masters, because in that culture mastering your craft is (much) more important than being original.
I don't hold originality in that much high regard for two reasons: first, it tends to downplay the part that's not original, and most of the time that's most of the product. Everything Is A Remix [1]. And second, I would have more respect for distinct products if they didn't result in endless copyright/patent extensions -- it becomes a bit too easy to say it was "your idea" if it applies to stuff created 60 years ago. At some point it should become part of the baseline, instead of undue revenue for rent-seekers.
> For example in China during most of its history if you wanted to become, say, a renowned painter, you were expected to spend your formative years copying the masters (...)
This is exactly how you were supposed to become a master painter during the Renaissance in Europe as well.
That sparks a link to a nice little story: A couple of years ago in IJmuiden (a Dutch harbor town where I used to live) a containerload of 'old Dutch masters' was seized by customs. Inside endless copies of famous Dutch paintings, meticulous work made for peanuts by very talented Chinese painters who had learned to copy from their masters as well as ours.
Smart people have always stolen ideas from completely unrelated industries.
I mean, Gutenberg invented the printing press after seeing a wine press crush grapes. Velcro was invented when some guy found burrs stuck to his trousers.
Genius isn’t conceiving some magic new technology. It's taking a mature technology and transplanting it elsewhere.
For Christmas, I bought myself a pass to Masterclass.com. They have classes by people like Malcolm Gladwell, Helen Mirren and Martin Scorsese.
I found that watching them sparks all kinds of unexpected epiphanies that you can apply to your life or your work.
For example, Deadmau5 has a folder of unfinished loops and melodies. He calls it his "Mr Potatohead" bin. He spends his time building little components – and then once in a while experiments with different ways of putting them together to make a track.
That's actually very similar to how I write.
Observing other professions is a great way to get your brain purring.
>For example, Deadmau5 has a folder of unfinished loops and melodies. He calls it his "Mr Potatohead" bin. He spends his time building little components – and then once in a while experiments with different ways of putting them together to make a track.
KRS-One reportedly did something similar:
> ‘Go to the car, and get me the black, blue, and green bags. And bring those here.’ They bring them in. ‘Great.’ He unzips these duffle bags full of stacks and stacks of rhyme notebooks. Rhymes he wrote in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He’ll go, ‘Umm, let’s see here, and that, and here, give me that yellow one, okay, and give me that brown one. Okay, let’s go lay the song.’ And he uses like three different rhymes, but they all sound relevant. And they sound like something he just wrote. He just skims through it, and murmurs then goes, ‘Okay, I got it.’ These are rhymes he been had, and they sound like today. That’s amazing.
Until the modern era. Now those ideas are copyrighted and patented. The Wine Press Industry would've sued gutenberg and the entire book making industry for making "a device that can press plant material" if this were the modern era of Intellectual Property.
That's what Toyota did for a while. They recycled existing technology to make their little engines better and faster, instead of developing new engines at a much higher cost.
There are probably very few original ideas anyway. Google wasn't new, search engines already existed. Yahoo! wasn't new, web directories already existed. If you trace it hard enough, you could get to filling cabinets and folders. Over the years, I have realized that the idea of 'idea' is itself problematic. It implies that you can describe something very complex with a simple phrase (in hindsight, of course). What was iPhone? A smartphone done right? To get to iPhone, Apple had to solve thousands of tiny problems and it's rather simplistic to say that other companies missed the wave because of complacence. You don't decide to make a better smartphone, and declare your victory.
The same problem is with the word 'talent.' To quote lines from one of my favorite research papers:
> What we call talent is no more than a projected reification of particular things done: hands placed correctly in the water, turns crisply executed, a head held high rather than low in the water. Through the notion of talent, we transform particular actions that a human being does into an object possessed, held in trust for the day when it will be revealed for all to see.
I think better way to think about all this is in terms of problems and their solutions. If you know a your customers face certain problem and it has already been solved, go ahead and copy it. Customers don't care where the idea came from when you do what they want/need.
This whole concept of idea ownership is pretty damaging to progress - most progress in 20th century was seeing several companies compete in same space and take ideas from competitors, iterating on them and integrating them in new, improved products.
Imagine if one car company could "own" the idea of blind spot monitoring. Or navigation. Or rear view camera.
or to put it another way - execution trumps ideation. A great idea executed badly (or even mediocrely) will still suck, but an average idea executed to perfection will have the opportunity to seize the market.
This sums all that is wrong with business. A few original pioneers at the beginning and the rest are at best slightly improved copies as they require lowest energy to spend, yet boasting their awesomeness everywhere in order to sell.
In India, Flipkart is often criticized for "copying" Amazon's idea (not that "sell stuff online" was revolutionary to begin with).
But the thing is, Flipkart entered the Indian market before Amazon.
As a consumer, I derived more value from Flipkart's "copy" that served me than from Amazon's "originality".
Same with Android. As a consumer, Android may have copied iOS, but Android's copy was far more affordable to me, and hence, I derived far more value from it than the original.
As a European and an android user, without the "copiers" most of those "original pioneers" would deliver no value to me, so I'm very glad the "copiers" exist.
Don't want your business copied? Make it available to everyone yourself in the first place.
Customers want iteration, evolution, and low-risk change. If every new product was a wholesale paradigm shift very few people would ever change what they spend their money on.
This is the conclusion I'm coming to with pretty much all things that are popular. It's also why "timing" is the most important thing in determining success of - well - anything. I think the only way it really works to be successful, as in wildly successful with a paradigm shifting concept or idea, is to work with small wins on the same thing for decades and hope that the zeitgeist shifts enough to be open to adopting your vision which you can then accelerate.
One trap here though is getting cynical and jealous when a new market entrant gets all the popularity, while the long tooth person gets very little. Ted Nelson is a perfect example of this and it's a little sad to see - though I understand where it's coming from.
Problem with Originality is that you have no one else's mistakes to learn from. Also the ecosystem and market around does not exist, so the execution is not only riskier but costly also.
Reading this article, the bar for something to be truly innovative is super high.
Using that logic we can argue that warp drive will be just 20% innovation because things already travelled to other planets prior, we just made it faster.
Also market is talked about as something constant, but it always changes based on zillion of events.
Some person wants to build huge ass wall. Well demand for anything to do with wall building goes up.
Recreational drugs getting legalized. Anything to do with that will go up.
It is always easy to look at something which succeeded and find reasons why. It is way harder to actually succeed irrelevant of innovation percentage.
If one succeeds it will be just enough. If one fails, it will be too little or too much.
It seems the recipe is to take a broad service, niche it down and improve specifically for that niche and you've got yourself something new but based on a previous success - taking out any guesswork whether it's going to succeed.
Being able to create demand and market only paying for what the market wants to buy are not mutually exclusive. One can create demand for a product through marketing and people are still buying what they want.
Just look at them, you can already see they live on the results that others produce. It's just about cloning other company's business idea. It's also a philosophy such kind of people apply to their whole life.
E.g. to their employees they probably set nearly unachievable goals. Then they start a vacation, while the employees are left to resolve the mess.
Customers and business partners? Often hear promises, but day by day requests for updates are responded with suggestions that leave the partners in more complicated questioning situations, maybe even stuff they should do to clear things up, so that they don't realize that again they didn't receive any results.
I don't even know much about these guys but from life experience and that photo this is my guess. Let others confirm or deny how correct it is. The article seems to confirm it. (only read after typing my guess)
> "I very rarely do interviews -- almost never,"
public, written proof of promises nobody intends to hold are annoying, right?
> Oliver takes issue with the prevailing notion that he and his brothers are driven purely by money. "If I was motivated by money alone, I would have stopped a long time ago," he insists. Rather, he suggests that what galvanises them is winning: "To prove over and over again that we're the best," he explains.
Let me put another quote against that: "It is not sufficient that I succeed – all others must fail." I strongly believe this is really their drive. They would do the same even if it would make a lot less money.
> Christian [i.e. person in very important position] was one of 50 people to drive Rocket, so losing him has no impact
As a German I have to say they are a disgrace and I'm sorry for their existence. I can tell you this: This kind of thinking is Southern German thinking, Bavarian. However neither Bavarians nor Germans really consider them Germans. Germans really are straight-forward, hard-working people, not bullshitters. Sadly since roughly 1936 Germany is lead by Bavarian/Austrian people, because they have more money and where lucky+sneaky enough to end up on the winning side with each political change.
They seem to have government support though, since Mutti Merkel really wants to turn Berlin into a Silicon Valley.
Jut FYI: Lot's of downvotes but not a single person until now could argue what their problem is. Are you downvoters one of the parasites? Or do you like to get exploited?
Hasknewbie|7 years ago
I don't hold originality in that much high regard for two reasons: first, it tends to downplay the part that's not original, and most of the time that's most of the product. Everything Is A Remix [1]. And second, I would have more respect for distinct products if they didn't result in endless copyright/patent extensions -- it becomes a bit too easy to say it was "your idea" if it applies to stuff created 60 years ago. At some point it should become part of the baseline, instead of undue revenue for rent-seekers.
[1] https://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series/
Hoasi|7 years ago
This is exactly how you were supposed to become a master painter during the Renaissance in Europe as well.
jacquesm|7 years ago
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
corporateslaver|7 years ago
0898|7 years ago
I mean, Gutenberg invented the printing press after seeing a wine press crush grapes. Velcro was invented when some guy found burrs stuck to his trousers.
Genius isn’t conceiving some magic new technology. It's taking a mature technology and transplanting it elsewhere.
For Christmas, I bought myself a pass to Masterclass.com. They have classes by people like Malcolm Gladwell, Helen Mirren and Martin Scorsese.
I found that watching them sparks all kinds of unexpected epiphanies that you can apply to your life or your work.
For example, Deadmau5 has a folder of unfinished loops and melodies. He calls it his "Mr Potatohead" bin. He spends his time building little components – and then once in a while experiments with different ways of putting them together to make a track.
That's actually very similar to how I write.
Observing other professions is a great way to get your brain purring.
oftenwrong|7 years ago
KRS-One reportedly did something similar:
> ‘Go to the car, and get me the black, blue, and green bags. And bring those here.’ They bring them in. ‘Great.’ He unzips these duffle bags full of stacks and stacks of rhyme notebooks. Rhymes he wrote in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He’ll go, ‘Umm, let’s see here, and that, and here, give me that yellow one, okay, and give me that brown one. Okay, let’s go lay the song.’ And he uses like three different rhymes, but they all sound relevant. And they sound like something he just wrote. He just skims through it, and murmurs then goes, ‘Okay, I got it.’ These are rhymes he been had, and they sound like today. That’s amazing.
from https://www.complex.com/music/2011/02/dj-premier-tells-all-s...
I'm pretty sure he was referencing this practice in 1, 2 Pass it:
>I'm the difference between indo and oregano. Imagine how fresh I am now; I made these lyrics up a year ago.
kevin_b_er|7 years ago
nicbou|7 years ago
jacquesm|7 years ago
http://www.wired.co.uk/article/inside-the-clone-factory
(Fun tidbit: that photograph is also a clone, of a sleeve for a Kraftwerk record: https://nerdist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/maxresdefault...)
SiempreViernes|7 years ago
shubhamjain|7 years ago
The same problem is with the word 'talent.' To quote lines from one of my favorite research papers:
> What we call talent is no more than a projected reification of particular things done: hands placed correctly in the water, turns crisply executed, a head held high rather than low in the water. Through the notion of talent, we transform particular actions that a human being does into an object possessed, held in trust for the day when it will be revealed for all to see.
I think better way to think about all this is in terms of problems and their solutions. If you know a your customers face certain problem and it has already been solved, go ahead and copy it. Customers don't care where the idea came from when you do what they want/need.
izacus|7 years ago
Imagine if one car company could "own" the idea of blind spot monitoring. Or navigation. Or rear view camera.
beaconstudios|7 years ago
jacksmith21006|7 years ago
[deleted]
bitL|7 years ago
throwawayqdhd|7 years ago
But the thing is, Flipkart entered the Indian market before Amazon.
As a consumer, I derived more value from Flipkart's "copy" that served me than from Amazon's "originality".
Same with Android. As a consumer, Android may have copied iOS, but Android's copy was far more affordable to me, and hence, I derived far more value from it than the original.
lmm|7 years ago
Don't want your business copied? Make it available to everyone yourself in the first place.
32qwef|7 years ago
- Business is not art.
- Even art isn't totally original.
okket|7 years ago
onion2k|7 years ago
gbacon|7 years ago
AndrewKemendo|7 years ago
This is the conclusion I'm coming to with pretty much all things that are popular. It's also why "timing" is the most important thing in determining success of - well - anything. I think the only way it really works to be successful, as in wildly successful with a paradigm shifting concept or idea, is to work with small wins on the same thing for decades and hope that the zeitgeist shifts enough to be open to adopting your vision which you can then accelerate.
One trap here though is getting cynical and jealous when a new market entrant gets all the popularity, while the long tooth person gets very little. Ted Nelson is a perfect example of this and it's a little sad to see - though I understand where it's coming from.
chiefalchemist|7 years ago
Originality Without Execution is Futile
blackoil|7 years ago
dredmorbius|7 years ago
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%28an+original...
An 1850 discussion: https://archive.org/stream/mechanicsmagazi48unkngoog#page/n2...
timavr|7 years ago
Using that logic we can argue that warp drive will be just 20% innovation because things already travelled to other planets prior, we just made it faster.
Also market is talked about as something constant, but it always changes based on zillion of events.
Some person wants to build huge ass wall. Well demand for anything to do with wall building goes up.
Recreational drugs getting legalized. Anything to do with that will go up.
It is always easy to look at something which succeeded and find reasons why. It is way harder to actually succeed irrelevant of innovation percentage.
If one succeeds it will be just enough. If one fails, it will be too little or too much.
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
mrhappyunhappy|7 years ago
m0skit0|7 years ago
This is a typical wrong free market argument. You can create demand, it is a known mechanism in capitalism.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sujanpatel/2016/10/22/create-a-...
keketi|7 years ago
ttoinou|7 years ago
erikb|7 years ago
Just look at them, you can already see they live on the results that others produce. It's just about cloning other company's business idea. It's also a philosophy such kind of people apply to their whole life.
E.g. to their employees they probably set nearly unachievable goals. Then they start a vacation, while the employees are left to resolve the mess.
Customers and business partners? Often hear promises, but day by day requests for updates are responded with suggestions that leave the partners in more complicated questioning situations, maybe even stuff they should do to clear things up, so that they don't realize that again they didn't receive any results.
I don't even know much about these guys but from life experience and that photo this is my guess. Let others confirm or deny how correct it is. The article seems to confirm it. (only read after typing my guess)
> "I very rarely do interviews -- almost never,"
public, written proof of promises nobody intends to hold are annoying, right?
> Oliver takes issue with the prevailing notion that he and his brothers are driven purely by money. "If I was motivated by money alone, I would have stopped a long time ago," he insists. Rather, he suggests that what galvanises them is winning: "To prove over and over again that we're the best," he explains.
Let me put another quote against that: "It is not sufficient that I succeed – all others must fail." I strongly believe this is really their drive. They would do the same even if it would make a lot less money.
> Christian [i.e. person in very important position] was one of 50 people to drive Rocket, so losing him has no impact
As a German I have to say they are a disgrace and I'm sorry for their existence. I can tell you this: This kind of thinking is Southern German thinking, Bavarian. However neither Bavarians nor Germans really consider them Germans. Germans really are straight-forward, hard-working people, not bullshitters. Sadly since roughly 1936 Germany is lead by Bavarian/Austrian people, because they have more money and where lucky+sneaky enough to end up on the winning side with each political change.
They seem to have government support though, since Mutti Merkel really wants to turn Berlin into a Silicon Valley.
erikb|7 years ago