When You Change the World and No One Notices
BY MORGAN HOUSEL
"Do you know what’s happening in this picture?
The Wrights’ story shows something more common than we realize: There’s often a big gap between changing the world and convincing people that you changed the world.
Jeff Bezos once said:
Invention requires a long-term willingness to be misunderstood. You do something that you genuinely believe in, that you have conviction about, but for a long period of time, well-meaning people may criticize that effort … if you really have conviction that they’re not right, you need to have that long-term willingness to be misunderstood. It’s a key part of invention.
It’s such an important message. Things that are instantly adored are usually just slight variations over existing products. We love them because they’re familiar. The most innovative products – the ones that truly change the world – are almost never understood at first, even by really smart people.
It happened with the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell tried to sell his invention to Western Union, which quickly replied:
This `telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a practical form of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us. What use could this company make of an electrical toy?
It happened with the car. Twenty years before Henry Ford convinced the world he was onto something, Congress published a memo, warning.....
Big breakthroughs typically follow a seven-step path:
First, no one’s heard of you.
Then they’ve heard of you but think you’re nuts.
Then they understand your product, but think it has no opportunity.
Then they view your product as a toy.
Then they see it as an amazing toy.
Then they start using it.
Then they couldn’t imagine life without it.
This process can take decades. It rarely takes less than several years.
Three points arise from this.
It takes a brilliance to change the world. It takes something else entirely to wait patiently for people to notice. “Zen-like patience” isn’t a typical trait associated with entrepreneurs. But it’s often required, especially for the most transformative products.
When innovation is measured generationally, results shouldn’t be measured quarterly. History is the true story of how long, messy, and chaotic change can be. The stock market is the hilarious story of millions of people expecting current companies to perform quickly, orderly, and cleanly. The gap between reality and expectations explains untold frustration."
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
