Innovation happens through iteration. Rarely does one have a fully formed “lightbulb” moment. Rather, good ideas emerge through trial and error, on the backbone of first principles.
Iteration from first principles is a more antifragile strategy for forming a business than adhering to preexisting roadmaps and business plans. When market conditions invariably change and new information arises, a business forged through iteration will have dynamic parts and systems that can more readily pivot to meet demand. This is why creating a minimal viable product (MVP) is so important. The ability to fork the basic fabric of a business provides leverage in the form of optionality. Try one approach, fail, try another. A/B testing is your iterative lever.
“Progress is a series of slightly better guesses”
@JackButcher
The same goes for fashioning a career. College is depressingly zero-sum. Eighteen year old’s take on insurmountable debt in exchange for credentialing for a career they’ve never test-driven. This linear trajectory fails to account for the fact that people change with time and new information, and careers themselves change—or at least their desirability—with new market conditions. College doesn’t account for the non-linearity and breakneck pace of technology in the information age. Textbooks are obsolete as soon as they are published. Education needs to be more iterative and dynamic, without the sunk cost of crippling debt informing career decisions.