“This brings us to another counterintuitive point: the best founders want to radically change the world for the better.” — The Future, Founders Fund

The lazed and the crazed make the best entrepreneurs

Posted: June 27th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: All, Meddik, Startups, Thoughts | 1 Comment »

My mother likes to say that when I was younger I spent the majority of my time worrying about what we’d be playing tomorrow. Hidden in this statement is two things: I want to spend as little time as possible working (read: I’m lazy) and I’m always bouncing off the walls (crazy).

Now I’m older, in truth I’m not terribly different; I’ve just become better at hiding it.

I recently read a quote that said something to the effect of “lazy people make the best innovators.” I think it’s missing one piece; you have to be crazy as well. It’s the lazy person that finds the most efficient way (both in time and energy) of accomplish a task. However, if you’re only lazy, you’ll also only do the minimal tasks required for daily living. Why waste time create companies and disrupting industries when there’s so much good TV? (Add the required dose of dripping sarcasm). By also being crazy, which in this instance I take to mean having various neuroses (read: mild OCD) that does not let you start a problem without finishing and/or where you get pissed off by blatant inefficiencies, you get an innovator.

It’s also due to this reasoning that I’m starting to learn as an entrepreneur that a consumer’s opinion of you at the end of the journey is important, but their opinion of you along the way doesn’t mean much. The masses slam the lazy for being, well, lazy. And the crazy for taking ridiculous risks and harping on seemingly pointless details. It’s not until you have something to show for it that the “oh” moment hits, and suddenly your realm of supporters skyrockets.

So to the lazed and the crazed, I thank you. You all make it much easier for me to do the same.

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  • Pearl Young

    You should read Frank Gilbreth’s opinion on this. He was one of the forerunners of industrial engineering, the science of time management. He always looked for the laziest man in the factory because he said that such a man had always figured out the most efficient way to do his job by using the fewest motions. :)