There were other lines of logic leading to the same conclusion. Complex machinery was always universal within a sexually reproducing species. If gene B relied on gene A, then A had to be useful on its own, and rise to near-universality in the gene pool on its own, before B would be useful often enough to confer a fitness advantage. Then once B was universal you would get a variant A* that relied on B, and then C that relied on A* and B, then B* that relied on C, until the whole machine would fall apart if you removed a single piece. But it all had to happen incrementally—evolution never looked ahead, evolution would never start promoting B in preparation for A becoming universal later. Evolution was the simple historical fact that, whichever organisms did in fact have the most children, their genes would in fact be more frequent in the next generation. So each piece of a complex machine had to become nearly universal before other pieces in the machine would evolve to depend on its presence.
I think something sorta similar is true about startups/business.
Say you have an idea for a better version of Craigslist called Bobslist. You have various hypotheses about how Craigslist’s UI is bad and can be improved upon. But without lots of postings, no one is going to care. Users care more about products and price than they do about the UI.
This reminds me of the thing with gene A and gene B. Evolution isn’t going to promote gene B if gene A isn’t already prominent.
If gene B relied on gene A, then A had to be useful on its own, and rise to near-universality in the gene pool on its own, before B would be useful often enough to confer a fitness advantage.
I think Bobslist’s nicer UI is like gene B. It relies on there being a comparable number and quality of product listings (“gene A”) and won’t be promoted by the market before “gene A” becomes prominent.
I think something sorta similar is true about startups/business.
Say you have an idea for a better version of Craigslist called Bobslist. You have various hypotheses about how Craigslist’s UI is bad and can be improved upon. But without lots of postings, no one is going to care. Users care more about products and price than they do about the UI.
This reminds me of the thing with gene A and gene B. Evolution isn’t going to promote gene B if gene A isn’t already prominent.
I think Bobslist’s nicer UI is like gene B. It relies on there being a comparable number and quality of product listings (“gene A”) and won’t be promoted by the market before “gene A” becomes prominent.