Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Hamstrung by Knowledge

Seth’s blog » Blog Archive » “My Advantage Was Ignorance”
“The main advantage I had was ignorance,” he said. He didn’t know all the things that could go wrong. “I wasn’t afraid.” Someone who knew more would have been. Geoffrey Bateson said something similar: If I’d known how hard everything was going to be, I would never have done anything. This is the upside of the ignorance that Nassim Taleb talks about.


Amen brother. For some time now, and especially since Julia has started her own business, I've been thinking about starting a software venture of some kind. I've thought about doing a micro ISV servicing the mac community, an agile consulting firm, a voip market place, a opensource PPM, and a handful of other ventures. In each case I've been hamstrung because I know, or at least think I know, the risks.

I'd probably be better off in a line of business w/ fewer bits and more atoms.

2 comments:

Bob Walsh said...

And Robert, don't forget the biggest risk: the regret of knowing you could have done any one of the projects you described, but never did.

Robert Evans said...

So true, Bob. I appreciate the encouragement.