[kenjackson]

With all due respect this article seems naive. Sure Google is building self-driving cars now (not exactly innovative, since virtually every 3rd grader lists that as one of the things they imagine in the future), but they did that after acquiring a hugely profitable core business which was "just another search engine".

Everything is "just another xyz" until its not.

What YC gets is that it asks it's founders to solve a problem. Maybe a real pain point, or a problem you don't know even exists until someone points it out to you, but whatever it is -- solve it well. At that points your minor pivots are leveraged until, before you know it, you're moving a mountain, when you started just intending to move a pebble.

And BTW, didn't Dropbox pass on an acquisition from Apple near $1B?