In my recent post, defining what I refer to as the ego dilemma, I said my favorite ego dilemma was couples who didn’t believe in signing a pre-nup before getting married. I was wrong. My absolute favorite ego dilemma is when someone comes up to me with a revolutionary, amazing, WORLD CHANGING idea. Once they get over the inevitable 15 minute prelude about how I shan’t steal it and I shan’t be paid for the privilege of hearing it, they ramp up to the pitch of what will inevitably be about what I call one of the “holy grail” problem. With the latest conversation, it was about how to build a successful micropayments platform, the one before that, it was building a better craigslist.

When dealing with a situation like this, it is both impossible and futile to point out what’s wrong with their actual ideas. To counter any specific point would be to focus on the trivial dumbness of the project and completely miss the much move overwhelming general dumbness that it is hiding. Although I’ve long ago given up the possibility of changing any of these people’s minds on their pet project, it’s still a fun way to hurl some inventive abuse.

A billion dollars worth of resources have been poured so far into failed startups who were all incredibly confident that this time they have solved the micropayment problem. A billion dollars of PhDs and business models and academic journals and optimistic infrastructure rollouts so that this time, they’re going to do it differently from everyone else and be the SPECIAL ones.
The nub of the ego dilemma is that to believe you have solved a holy grail problem is to believe that you’re smarter than those billion dollars.

Do you really believe that your smarter, more creative, more insightful that every one of the people who have gone before you? Do you really, really believe this, even thought you acknowledge that every one of the people who have gone before you also believed the same thing and all of them were clearly wrong?

People do believe it. They really, really do.

This is quite possibly the most extreme ego dilemma that it’s possible to have, the one by which a rational application of an ego dilemma argument must surely convince any person that they’re quite clearly wrong. The argument against you being a billion dollar genius is so overwhelming that there cannot be any conceivable rebuttal to it and yet, it is also one that is clung to with fierce determination by everyone who experiences it.

The stereotypical image of the billion dollar genius is that of a mentally unstable crank who natters on constantly about their perpetual motion machine and, to be fair, they do make up the bulk of this category. But the really scary thing is that the billion dollar genius syndrome also affects smart, reasonable and otherwise clear thinking people with an equal ferocity. You could be a rationality ninja but still be unavoidably captivated by this particular ego dilemma.

How do I know all of this? Because not only have I seen my smart, reasonable, clear thinking friends suffer through this, I’m forced to confront the unfortunate reality that I’m afflicted by it myself. Even given the impeccable logic presented above, I believe that I have solved a holy grail problem. I’m not dumb enough to present the solution for public ridicule yet but I’m just dumb enough to publicly announce which holy grail problem I’ve solved: I believe I have an entirely novel and practical approach to monetizing a large swathe of Web 2.0 applications without relying on advertising.

Ridiculous, right?

Trust me, I am well aware of how ridiculous it all sounds. And yet… I’m SPECIAL goddammit!

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  • Riamu
    I actually do have an idea, which will make ton of money but I can't talk about it.
  • Hang
    There's a difference between "the holy grail problem can be solved" and "you will solve the holy grail problem". Yes, they laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at Bozo the clown.
  • You can still consistently believe you have a billion dollar idea, and the most people who think they have billion dollar ideas are wrong, so long as you are open to the possibility that you are wrong. You don't have to think you're somehow special.

    This should really be true of anything you believe. Tons of people have basic facts wrong, but there's a set of basic facts you think you're right about.
  • jose_the_one
    Do you know how most discoveries are done? , someone is drunk with and idea that makes him work a lot for putting this idea to work, and they discovered the idea they thought about was wrong, but SOMETHING GREAT they didn't think about is discovered in the process.

    Imagine being google founders, or any founder, if you doubt about you, you stop working. You know what the Teslamotors electric car makers said, we didn't thought it was going to be so difficult, IF WE KNEW PROBABLY WE DIDN'T HAD STARTED. Same happened with Pixar, trolltech, whatever.

    Passion is what powers them all. Stop using your brain to stop you.
  • Abe
    This strikes me as ENTIRELY the wrong attitude with regard to innovation. The reason great discoveries get made, or great ideas take off, is because someone somewhere thought precisely what you sarcastically describe above, and was right about it! They were able to overcome the nagging little voice in the back of their heads telling them that no, surely some much smarter person has already thought of this and dismissed it for some good reason that they're just not capable of realizing yet, so why even bother trying to get this idea off the ground?

    Being innovative does require having some amount of arrogance (or ego), sure, but that's not a bad thing! The proper response to someone who thinks they've figured out one of the holy grail problems is not to be annoyed and disdainful without ever giving them a fair hearing; it's to listen to their idea, think it through on the merits, and either dismiss it (and give them your reason why) or encourage them to go with it. If you tell them up front why it won't work, they'll either listen or they won't. But if you just sniff and say, "As if!" before even hearing their idea or thinking it through, then they shouldn't listen to you because your pointless and baseless closed-mindedness serves no purpose.
  • 3-D
    Ego is a necessary part of human advancement and personal wealth. If some jackass didn't get the idea in his head that he was smarter or better than those that came before him, we wouldn't have the advances that we do.

    Yes, that thinking leads to a ton of failures, but as a society on the whole we benefit from the one success when it finally does happen. Chase your "dumb" idea, allowing your ego to shove aside your fear of failure and embarrassment. Try to have fun along the way as well, soak up any lessons you can from each little failure, an revel in each little success. Live in each moment and don't worry if you reach the original destination.

    At least you'll have a good time pursuing what you want and (with a little humility) learn a few things along the way!
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