AsianScientist (Oct. 3, 2014) – The last two decades have been an era of tech innovation, with the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter dominating the social, financial and internet stratospheres. But for every success, there have many more failures, and young scientists and engineers must be willing to learn from these failures in their bid to reach the singular blow-up idea—so say tech giants Steve Chen, Roelof Botha and Phil Libin.
These gentlemen should certainly know what they’re talking about: two out of three are members of the so-called “PayPal Mafia” (a colloquial term used to refer to former PayPal employees who have since developed more successful technology start-ups): Chen is a co-founder of YouTube, that most of ubiquitous video-sharing services, and venture capitalist Botha has played key roles in the development of PayPal, Instagram and many other tech companies.
Mr. Libin, in the meanwhile, is the chief executive at EverNote, a popular multi-platform note-taking app worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Always Look At The Upsides
When Asian Scientist caught up with them during TechVenture 2014, held in Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands Expo & Convention Center, the trio agreed that their best ideas had taken years to develop, with the journey to success dotted by numerous non-starters and missed opportunities.
So what have they learned from these misadventures?
“One thing I’ve realized, in hindsight, is that my mistakes came about from decisions I had made out of fear,” says Mr. Libin. “A lot of the things we didn’t do at EverNote were a result of such decisions of fear.”
“Nowadays, I force myself not to think of the downsides to a particular choice: to not think of all the ways it could go wrong, but to think of what it would be like if it turned out to be awesome.”
Humans are wired to think of the downsides to any decisions, he notes, but that is a very short-term approach to life.
“Our brains have evolved to overestimate the downsides, and underestimate upsides, of a given action,” Libin muses, observing that this ingrained “fear of failure” might explain the reluctance in certain parts of the world, such as Asia, to embrace entrepreneurship.
It’s an observation that Chen agrees with, noting that countries like Taiwan are attempting to inculcate such a risk-taking culture from a young age, such as with programs for high school students.
“There’s a lot more to the innovation process than is obvious from the surface,” Chen points out. “Most of the recent, great million dollar start-ups have come from a ten-mile radius of San Francisco, but it’s not because there’s anything in the water. There needs to be a willingness to try new things, and to fail.”
Noodles, Paper, Fireworks: What’s Next From Asia?
Botha, for his part, is optimistic that Asia will be a likely source of revolutionary tech and innovation in the future.
“If you go back in history, China was actually a well-spring of incredible technology and innovation: fireworks, explosives, paper, noodles,” he notes. “There’s no inherent reason why they, or anyone outside of Silicon Valley, can’t come up with something else great.”
It helps too, that the process of starting a company, and spinning off a technology, is vastly different to the landscape more than a decade ago. Back then, Mr. Botha says, getting the infrastructure together was a lot more difficult. These days, all a person needs is a good internet connection.
“Don’t be afraid of dropping out of grad school to pursue an idea,” he reiterates. “The truth is all of these things take years and years. Your first try isn’t likely to be successful. There is a lot of failure along the way.”
In the end, it might help to think about the impact of a given idea, whether it’s in the area of science or technology.
“We decided [at EverNote] to work on high-impact issues,” Libin explains. “Our philosophy is to work on problems that, if solved, will change the world,”
Botha concurs, adding that Asian science and tech entrepreneurs could learn much from such an approach.
“Look at photo sharing companies—they don’t have to come out of the Bay Area. People all over the world are taking pictures. The sort of problems being solved in Silicon Valley are global problems, and that’s why they’re successful.”
——
Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
