[PaulDavisThe1st]

"Not screwing up the company" is a necessary but insufficient condition for startup success.

I did not say that "Bezos just won" nor that his ideas and approach had no impact. As has been noted by others in this sub-thread, the point is that if it had not been Bezos (because he stayed at D.E. Shaw, or fucked up early Amazon) it would have been someone else. Capitalism abhors a vacuum.

[seibelj]

I just find your logic so defeatist. “Someone will win”. It’s like saying “someone is the fastest runner, so why bother trying”.

Yes, someone will always be the best at something. But you can be better than the best. That’s the whole point of human striving.

[PaulDavisThe1st]

(1) by definition you cannot be better than the best.

(2) "someone will win" is a description of a competition. If it was a marathon, and your goal was to win, and you knew that there were 500 runners capable of running more than 30 minutes faster than you, why would you enter the marathon. You will NOT win.

(3) there are other goals in life besides winning (for example, what i've done since leaving amazon after just over a year). you can pour almost unlimited amounts of energy, time and love into something without the need to be declared "the winner", and indeed, this is what most people do with most of their lives. you may choose to run a marathon despite knowing that you cannot possibly win the race. you may even choose to run a marathon knowing you will be slower than the last time you tried. running is not a good metaphor or analogy for business "competition".

(4) there are lots of contexts that are nothing like a marathon. you don't know who will be participating. you don't know how good they are. you don't know how good you are. you may not even fully understand what the criteria for "winning" are. nevertheless, you will still be "competing" with others, and you may choose to participate in that for reasons that are much more complicated than "i want to win" (though that might be one of them).

(5) if you do not have intrinsic motivation, you will likely be unable to show sufficient dedication to succeed in a competitive business environment. so you'd better have at least that. maybe it comes because your arrogance makes you want to prove to the world how good you are. maybe it comes because you're really, deeply convinced that your idea will make the world a better place. but it had better be some sort of motivation beyond "i just want to win" - that's almost never enough to succeed.

(6) so let's assume that you do have an excellent level of intrinsic motivation. let's say you have an excellent idea. let's say you have excellent ideas about to build a company and a product/service. these are all necessary ingredients for success. but will any of them guarantee it? no, they will not.

(7) if you're the kind of person who matches (6) but believes the success is purely a result of what you (and perhaps others) bring to the effort, you're likely to be rather surprised. the chances are that despite your motivation, excellent ideas and management, you will fail. you will fail in a very ordinary way: the way that most people fail - a combination of bad luck, perhaps a handful of minor errors, maybe one or two major ones. if you're aware of this, and it stops you from even starting, that's probably for the best in the contemporary US economy. not wanting to do something without a guaranteed win is likely negatively correlated with actual success.

(8) on the other hand, if you're aware of this, but your intrinsic motivation is still high enough to make a go of it, then go for it. this will not change your chances of success (at least not much) - chances are you will fail. but you're the type of person who is OK with this. you know that every once in a while, someone (probably someone like you) will succeed beyond anyone's expectations, and that adds to your own intrinsic motivation sufficiently to make it worth the risk - the likelihood - of failure.

(9) people like the ones who match (8) are why we have amazon and its ilk.

The problem is [ EDIT: NOT ] that people like this exist, nor that they behave as they do. The problem is believing that:

(a) the results of their own self-belief and efforts to validate that are always good for society

(b) good things only arise from this sort of person

(c) the corrollary of (b), that people who are not like this can not create things that are good for society

a, b and c are all demonstrably provably false, both in modern times, and throughout the span of human history.

[seibelj]

I simply can't understand your point(s). I'm honestly trying, and re-read this 3 times.

Should no one ever try? Or is it only in the context of business?

Furthermore, who are your heroes, and why do they fulfill the criteria of your success metrics? Or is every single successful person merely an unthinking automaton living a preordained existence?