What is genius? Here& #39;s from my past chess life (I was a 2100+ rated chess player)
What differentiates a super Grandmaster (GM) from a highly ranked International master (IM) ? And what& #39;s the analogy in the startup world?

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Most IMs (even the lower-ranked ones) can and do generate the same set of candidate moves almost 99% of the time. They can talk intelligently and discuss pros and cons of each move. This is why they are able to annotate and commentate even Carlsen& #39;s or Kasparov& #39;s matches.

However, the difference lies in weighting these moves accurately prior to knowing which is the best one. Also, the difference happens only in maybe 4-5 moves in the entire game (where the super GM makes a different move).

But that& #39;s the difference between explaining great moves vs making great moves at the right time! We can call this "explaining away" the genius or hindsight.

I think startups are fairly similar. Lots of people are able to explain away the success of every great product/platform. However, when faced with the 1000s of decisions required to get to greatness, a very small number of decisions actually are important.

Unfortunately, we dont know upfront which decisions are key. Therein lie the struggle and the beauty of it all!