Passion Beats Timing If Persistent

“But what happens if you fall in love with the wrong thing? If you find a product or company that’s too early—the supporting infrastructure isn’t there, the customers don’t exist, the leadership has a crazy vision and won’t budge. What if you’re deeply passionate about quantum computing or synthetic biology or fusion energy or space exploration even though there’s no sign that any of those industries will bear fruit anytime soon? Then screw it. Go for it. If you love it, don’t worry about all my advice, don’t worry about the timing.”

“If you’re passionate about something—something that could be solving a huge problem one day—then stick with it. Look around and find the community of people who are passionate about it, too. If there’s nobody else on Earth thinking about it, then you may truly be too early or going in the wrong direction. But if you can find even a handful of like-minded people, even if it’s just a tiny community of geeks building technology nobody has any idea how to turn into a real business, then keep going. Get in on the ground floor, make friends, and find mentors and connections that will bear fruit when the world spins just enough to make what you’re making make sense. You may not be at the same company as when you started, the vision may be different, the product may be different, and the technology will have changed. You may have to fail and fail and learn and learn and evolve and understand and grow.”