Startup lessons
> If it doesn’t augment the human condition for a huge number of people in a meaningful way, it’s not worth doing.<p>this is the kind of arrogance i find disheartening about these kinds of lists.  really - things aren't <i>worth doing</i> unless they clear this impossibly ambitious bar?<p>should i tell the owner of the corner cafe i stop into after work every other day, and that gives me a huge amount of joy nearly every time, that she should give it up because her business doesn't "augment the human condition for a huge number of people"?  how about the guy who wrote the $5 clipboard app that makes my life much easier?  i'm sure he has lots of customers but "a huge number" that have "augmented" their humanity because of his clipboards....<p>and i hate to be an ass, but ... under whose criteria does rethinkdb qualify for this, anyway?  how meta do we have to go here?  how many degrees of separation are we talking about exactly?<p>the problem with these kinds of statements is they can be rationalized by smart people into all sorts of justifications for doing and/or not doing a huge number of things.