Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
The small downside
Bending Spoons' founders put their odds of building one of the most successful companies ever at close to 0%. They also figured they would not starve, since a lot of engineers with good degrees find a job if they need one. Building something from scratch with huge ambition is more fun and tends to attract better people. The downside is very modest.
Standing out to win
That logic has a consequence. Anyone who does what everybody else does will fail to reach an outlier outcome. Imitating others may be the smartest path to a reasonable result, because imitators rarely make massive mistakes, but outstanding outcomes usually require means that stand out too, at least in some ways. The founders explored the whole universe of possible solutions to each small problem: hiring, culture, technology, marketing. It took longer and some mistakes were avoidable, but they stumbled on ideas that turned out to be distinctive and powerful.
Patience for takeoff
Patience comes with it. A rocket ship takes longer to lift off than a more rudimentary vehicle, then moves at 100 times the speed. Judged one, two, or three years in, it looks like it is trailing. Investment banking, consulting, or joining a successful scale-up reach high gratification with much higher probability on a shorter timeline. The urgency and hard work required are the same or greater, and they run for longer.
Why do most venture bets return so little?
Venture returns follow a power law, where a handful of investments produce nearly all the gains. An analysis of more than 20,000 venture financings by Correlation Ventures found that roughly 65 percent returned less than the capital invested. The few outsized winners cover the losses and more. That shape is why ambitious founders and their investors aim at outcomes far above the typical one.
Why do people copy what others do?
In a 1983 paper, the sociologists Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell described mimetic isomorphism: when goals are unclear or the future is uncertain, organizations copy those that look successful. Copying lowers the risk of an embarrassing mistake, since the choice can be defended as standard practice. The cost is that copies end up with the same results as the original.
Why does a rocket start so slowly?
At liftoff, a rocket is mostly propellant by mass, so even a strong engine moves it upward gently at first. As the fuel burns off, the vehicle gets lighter and the same thrust produces faster acceleration. The Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky worked out the rocket equation in 1903, linking final speed to how much of the vehicle's mass is propellant.
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