Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas
Paul Graham’s essay Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas argues that the most transformative startup ideas are paradoxically repellent to ambitious people.
Why We Avoid Them
These ideas threaten one’s sense of identity. They’re “invisible to most people who try to think of startup ideas, because their subconscious filters them out.”
Seven Ambitious Ideas
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New Search Engine — Target elite hackers rather than mass markets. Google has deteriorated.
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Replace Email — Email functions poorly as a to-do list protocol. Give recipients more control.
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Replace Universities — Higher education faces disruption as learning fragments. Create alternative credentialing.
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Internet Drama — New entertainment production and distribution models for internet delivery.
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Next Steve Jobs — No existing tech leader demonstrates visionary product innovation. Fill the vacuum.
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Bring Back Moore’s Law — Create “sufficiently smart compilers” to automatically parallelize code.
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Ongoing Medical Diagnosis — Continuous monitoring before symptoms appear.
Strategic Advice
Start with “deceptively small things” rather than frontal assaults. Gates and Zuckerberg didn’t initially grasp their companies’ eventual scale—they simply pursued something promising.
The approach should resemble Columbus heading “in a general westerly direction” rather than following precise blueprints.
My Takeaway
If an idea doesn’t scare you a little, it might not be ambitious enough.
What’s your frighteningly ambitious idea? I’d love to hear at persdre@gmail.com.