In search of genius

posted by pete on March 22nd, 2009

Mike’s pre-Unspace coworker Ray Acayan left a really good comment on my last post about the challenges of breaking free of corporate bureaucracy to pursue your dreams.

I totally empathize with his position, but I encourage Ray and anyone else sitting on the fence to accept that sacrifice and work ethic are the only differentiators when it comes to success, regardless of how you define it. When Ryan, Anthony and I started Unspace, we had no assets (okay, we were charming!) and I was actually $100,000 in personal debt as a direct result of my rock band’s recent implosion. Building this company was hard.

The great news is that the climate for start-ups in Canada is 100% different now than it was in 2004; first, we have an amazing tech community. The importance of networking cannot be overstated, and someone new pretty much just has to show up and be passionate about something.

Secondly, the government and investment infrastructure is finally starting to catch up with the exploding “Spadina tech grotto.” There’s literally dozens of interesting tech companies within two blocks of Queen and Spadina. We’ve had 19 DemoCamp events for Obama sakes! Or how about Friday’s Over $1 billion in stimulus for Canadian startups? That’s not pocket change, folks.

Ray also says “we will find that geniuses are truly everywhere.” I do have to disagree with Ray here.

Not only do I not believe this to be the case, but I think any discussion which uses words like “genius” and “prodigy” need to be responsible and use them to mean what they mean in the dictionary. When I speak of genius, I am most definitely alluding to the Alan Turings, Isaac Newtons, and Da Vincis; one in a billion thinkers that redefined their world. When I speak of prodigies, I am talking about Bobby Fischer, Thelonious Monk, and Tiger Woods.

It Hampton a genius? Most definitely not. Is Nathan a prodigy? I believe so, yes… and I suspect that history will agree with me.

My concern is that we constantly dilute the words we use to describe our society’s most brilliant. While it’s true that there exists a greater potential in today’s world to recognize these special people, I would argue that there are also just a lot more people on the planet — and people in the West are only now doing the math and realizing that the next five Einsteins will likely be Chinese.

Finding genius talent should always be your #1 goal. Almost everyone will fail in this search, and have to settle for people who are merely in the top 0.1%. Given the 6.76 billion people currently on the planet, that’s a pool of 676,000 non-geniuses that each could change the world if you gave them the right environment.

Stop thinking about surrounding yourself with smart people as a business opportunity, and start seeing it as your new moral and civic responsibility. Be humble and success will run behind you to catch up.