On Ideas/ Companies
07 Jan 2018First, if you haven’t already heard Guy Raz’s “How I Built This”, definitely give it listen. Excellent stuff.
What’s most interesting about many of his stories is that at some point in the life of an idea, when it gets to the point of being fully fleshed out and instantiated into a fully functioning company, it starts to live on its own. And oftentimes the founders will take a backseat role, or even move on.
How/ why does this occur? You would think that the creator/ owner of business would control it as long as it lives, or shut it down if it starts to go into a wrong direction.
The problem, of course, is one of scale. Once a company gets big enough, it becomes a cultural object in it of itself. It inhabits a higher level than the indivduals whom created it. It becomes a natural force in society.
And biological analogies are helpful here. The building of a business really is like the growing/ evolving of an organism.
When we get an idea, or we build a business into a big idea/ image/ brand, we build a mental object1 that can be communicated to and propagated through other people. At that point, it becomes something like a virus.
If we take this analogy further, we realize that indeed not only is this mental object that we build like a biological entity, it is a biological entity. It’s one that inhabits human brains, that may or may not influence their behavior. Do they buy your product? Do they hire you?
When we realize this, we also realize that a good idea should be like a virus. When we have a good idea, it should feel like we’re sick with it. It should feel so inhabiting that it’d be better if we acted on it (i.e. transmit to others) rather than live with it. This is why sometimes you’ll hear founders/ writers/ artists say something like: “It was almost easier that I built/ wrote it, so I could stop thinking about it.”
A good idea should feel like it has a life of its own.
And this should be embraced to a degree. Treat an idea/ company like you would a garden, or a child. You’re responsible for the watering, the providing for, but don’t give it less credit than it deserves. If we set it up for success, it will grow big and powerful. Ideally, it will grow much bigger and more powerful than the individual whom created it.
Anther implication of this line of thinking: to get infected with an idea is not a unique or special phenomenon. It is a biological/ cultural process that strikes individuals in particular places, at particular times, with particular knowledge sets. And with more and more humans in the world, with more access to information than ever before, it’s likely that at any given time someone else is probably getting the idea you have.
And maybe even working on making it a reality. 2
1. Ultimately an instantiation of the resources-processes-values (RPV) framework. https://hbr.org/2000/03/meeting-the-challenge-of-disruptive-change. Return.
2. See Samuel Johnson’s “Where Good Ideas Come From” for more on origins of ideas. There are good reasons to believe this is really how ideas work. Return