The Moment with Brian Koppelman: Marc Andreessen
For any kind of creative endeavor - for products or companies - you are launching into a complex adaptive system. The world is a complex adaptive system. It is not a predictable system. It is not a linear system. It does not behave in ways you can expect. It is adaptive. It changes. [1:44]
Creativity is a collaborative exercise between the creator and the audience. [4:21]
For entrepreneurs this is a big difference between success and failure: If you think the market will automatically appreciate your product - they won’t. The world is busy. People don’t wake up in the morning and think I can’t wait until I find out what this person I’ve never heard of has invented. [5:20]
The successful people are the ones that can do the creating and are able to carry the idea forward, evangelize it - and make sure people see it and it succeeds. [5:46]
We are social animals that care what other people think. People tend to appreciate the things other people are appreciating. Therefore if you are going to be a creative professional you should lean into that. You should take that seriously. [10:34]
If you have a really, really great idea you can shout it to the rafters and still, no one will take it seriously. The world is filled with ideas. [14:36]
Book recommendation: Born Standing Up by Steve Martin. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. Steve Martin says be so good they can’t ignore you. [20:52]
No one where I come from [Wisconsin] goes to Stanford or MIT. I had no possibility whatsoever. So I went to the 3rd choice, University of Illinois. They accepted me because they love out of state students who pay higher tuition. [28:58]
When Marc was working on the first internet browser he read the first issue of Wired Magazine. They never mentioned the internet. His conclusion: The entire domain I’m working on doesn’t even merit a mention. It doesn’t matter. All I could do was go back to work [on the browser]. So I did. [34:31]
The best entrepreneurs really do live in the future. They can envision the world in which it [what they want to happen] has already happened. [39:16]
Customers don’t know what they want. Nobody asked for the Macintosh, the car, or the internet. It is not their job to know. [45:26]
At some point, you realize the [hearing people tell you] No’s aren’t killing you. [48:15]
Before Google, everyone KNEW that it was impossible to make a good search engine. [58:30]