Competitors are Overrated
For the past 4 years, I’ve been heavily invested in observing the development of deep learning systems and AI companies, and until recently something important clicked.
It really clicked for me when I read one of gdb’s most beautiful tweets:
“Copying seems easier than creating, but somehow often misses something about the original innovation.”
Many people might copy things you do, say the same things, etc whenever they possibly can. But what copycats can’t take and use is your thought process that led you to your design decisions, your vision, your next steps, etc and that will make all the difference.
The best medicine for cases like these is to simply double down and work relentlessly on executing fast. History has a long log of giants that were outcompeted by small teams starting out of their own garage.
An interesting way to think about the whole competition dilemma that I found very comforting and put me at peace with this, is that in the vast majority of darkness in this universe, it would be for the greater good of humanity to have competition.