When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts.
Interpretation
Innovation often leads to criticism and doubt from others.
Larry Ellison's quote emphasizes that creativity and innovation can be met with skepticism and criticism from society. When someone ventures into new ideas, they may encounter resistance and negativity from others who may not understand or appreciate their vision, but this is a part of the innovation process.
In practice
In a talk about entrepreneurial spirit, this quote can highlight the challenges faced by innovators.
All you can do is every day, try to solve a problem and make your company better. You can't worry about it, you can't panic when you look at the stock market's decline. You get frozen like a deer in the headlights. All you can do is all you can do.
If you do everything that everyone else does in business, you're going to lose. The only way to really be ahead, is to 'be different'.
All you can do is every day, try to solve a problem and make your company better
The things that caused problems for me in school are the same things that help me succeed in the world.
Both my mother and I were determined that we weren't going to stay on welfare. We always worked toward doing better, toward having a better life. We never had any doubts that we would.
Everyone thought the acquisition strategy was extremely risky because no one had ever done it successfully. In other words, it was innovative.
Just as producers often give consumers things they want but didn't think to ask for, consumers sometimes come up with surprising uses for new inventions. When a new product appears, it can uncover dissatisfactions and desires no one knew were there.
Efficiency innovations arise in industries that already exist. They provide existing goods and services at much lower costs. They are not empowering. Efficiency innovators become the low cost providers within an existing framework.
Predicting innovation is something of a self-canceling exercise: the most probable innovations are probably the least innovative.
Surprise drives progress because innovation depends on the sort of knowledge no one can gather in a central place.
Removing the faults in a stage-coach may produce a perfect stage-coach, but it is unlikely to produce the first motor car.
The thing about inventing is you have to be both stubborn and flexible. The hard part is figuring out when to be which.
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