[1]: http://paulgraham.com/newideas.html
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27062713
[3]: https://www.echevarria.io/blog/the-mighty-pushback-isnt-all-...
I don't think it's so much that you can't tell the difference between crazy bad and crazy good ideas in the early stages, it's that you're asking the wrong people. pg loves to quote the mythos that AirBnB was such a "crazy" idea early on that big VCs couldn't see the potential. But even in the early years, I don't think AirBnB was a big leap at all. Couchsurfing was already big, and platforms like HomeAway/VRBO had received huge funding rounds. pg was just asking the wrong VCs - not surprising that a bunch of rich old guys would be put off staying in someone's guestroom. Indeed, my understanding is that the first investor to really see value in AirBnB was very familiar with the vacation rental space.
In my opinion, the startups that were wildly successful weren't so much because they had "out there" ideas, but because their execution was unparalleled. Dropbox, Stripe, Figma, AirBnB, etc. just came out with products that were a delight to use when you first tried them in ways their competitors weren't.
Trying to be introspective, I think the event that most surprised me and seemed "crazy" was the election of Donald Trump in 2016. But again, I think i was just asking the wrong people. My circle of college-educated urbanites was basically unaware of the depth of some of the discontent with the status quo that Trump tapped into.
the complaints from the peanut gallery was always "this will work until it doesn't anymore", just like Uber, and that's exactly what's happening, it's crashing down now.
Not so bad in and of itself, it’s when individual’s delusions of self worth infect others and drag us along with.
Daily work should focus on tending to human biological needs and telling the delusional to mumble their gibberish in a corner aside from that.
I feel zero obligation to validate PG or Musk or the rest. Just people. Each one of billions. Their figurative identities as wealthy members of society is due to conformity to politically correct spoken tradition, not an indication they’re almighty.
None of this is to say that all of those crazy ideas, or even any given crazy idea, will work out in the long run. The thing is, we cannot know until that time has come and gone.
I'd make a terrible VC.