[carapace]

I once talked to a retired hardware engineer, a fellow who made real electronic devices, not software. He told me that, over the whole course of his career, 80% of the projects he worked on never made it to market. In other words, 4/5th of his total "productivity" turned out to be waste. Make of it what you will.

[BrandonMarc]

Put differently, 80% of his time gave his brain training and practice which likely improved the 20% that made it to market.

Also consider, frustrating though I'm sure that was, he probably still got paid for his effort in the 80%.

[edelans]

Interesting point of view, thanks for putting it that way ! It makes me think of artists :

- how many hours did a musician spent on his instrument before selling his first record ? - How many drawings/paintings before Picasso could sell something ? (etc.)

[triceratops]

Why didn't he just work on projects that would make it to market? /s

[1123581321]

He could not have chosen to only attempt the successful projects.