In 1995, a groundbreaking new company launched.
They called it a “search engine.” You could type in whatever you wanted and it would tell you about it. Sort of like an encyclopedia, but without the door-to-door salesman.
This search engine had a minimalist home page. It had advanced algorithms. It made money via ad revenue.
Then, three years later, Google came along.
And by 2013, AltaVista was dead.
So much for being first.
You know who the Wright Brothers were, right? First guys to fly an airplane.
But you probably haven’t heard of Samuel Langley.
He was experimenting with powered flight before the Wright Brothers took off.
Elon Musk built Tesla into a $1.25 trillion company.
But we rarely talk about General Motors producing an electric car in 1996.
We overvalue innovation.
We undervalue iteration.
We’re taught from childhood to prize originality.
“Be the first! Stand out! Go your own way!”
Makes sense.
But that teaching also sets us up to have subconscious misperceptions about what progress actually looks like.
Think about your life. Pick an area you’re hoping for a breakthrough in. Now picture that breakthrough.
How does it look?
Is it explosive? Triumphant? Big bursts of light, royal trumps blaring, and confetti cascades?
I bet that’s how it looks in your head.
But that’s not how it works in real life.
We think breakthroughs take the form of instant success, soaring leaps, and new beginnings, but real progress comes from working, reworking, and improving on what we already have.
Or what other people have already shown us.
Look at any "overnight success" story. Dig deeper and you'll find years of refinement. Countless iterations. Endless tweaks.
Apple didn't invent the smartphone. They just made it better.
Facebook wasn't the first social network. They just executed better.
Amazon wasn't the first online bookstore. They just kept improving.
These companies weren't first movers. They were better movers.
They took existing ideas and refined them until they worked.
Then they refined them again.
And again.
Being first is overrated.
Being better is what counts. And “better” rarely happens in a single breakthrough moment.
Forget about inventing.
Pay attention to what works for you.
Pay attention to what works for others.
Then iterate, iterate, iterate.
Agreed. We need innovators AND operators to move forward. Very few people are both, but we usually know their names!