All progress depends on the unreasonable goal
When you start something, the goal you’ve set in your mind will inevitably define and color what you create. Building something from the inception with the goal to sell it is distinctly different from building something you see as beneficial to the world, or something that follows a personal passion.
This amazing piece by Vinod Khosla in the NYT says it far better than I can. “You want missionaries, not mercenaries.”
“The creativity, productivity and pace of innovation in Silicon Valley relies on brilliant and foolish entrepreneurs being unreasonable enough to believe they can be the exception to the ‘rule.’ As George Bernard Shaw said, ‘all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’ If everyone played it safe, we wouldn’t get anywhere.”