看看世界上最有價值的科技公司，大家就會發現一件有意思的事：沒有任何一家公司發明了它們所定義的那一類產品，而且它們的巨額利潤中的絕大多數都來自并非由它們創造的市場。

無論是蘋果之于智能手機，谷歌之于網絡搜索，微軟之于操作系統，Facebook之于社交網絡，還是亞馬遜之于電子商務，這些公司成立時，沒有任何人預見到它們腳下的道路最終通往何方。

這說明什么呢？比如，你不必成為第一個，不過這一點大家可能已經知道了。遠比這個重要的是，就傳統觀點而言，這些公司的創始人選擇的道路都荒謬得可笑。

“相信自己的直覺，就算所有人都說你瘋了。”這條建議說起來容易，做起來很難。挑戰堪比磐石的現狀，去做那些專家說不可能的事可不適合膽小之輩。而這恰恰是那些公司創始人的所作所為——無視眾人建議，相信自己關注的那一件或兩件事。

專家認為，史蒂夫·喬布斯一定是瘋了才會進入競爭激烈的手機行業。2007年，約翰·德沃夏克寫出了人人心中所想：“蘋果應該讓iPhone項目下馬，”原因是它成功的可能性“為零”。后來，德沃夏克又把iPad稱為市場影響將微乎其微的“巨型iPod Touch”。

現在，iPhone無疑已經成為歷史上最成功的產品之一，它創造的收入幾乎超過了所有標普500指數企業。iPad主導的平板電腦市場在2015年超越了PC市場——此時距iPad誕生只有短短五年。

我要告訴大家，2001年第一家蘋果零售店開張時，所有人都覺得蘋果瘋了。

如今，蘋果零售店已經成為美國最賺錢的零售業務。

1998年，斯坦福大學畢業生拉里·佩奇和謝爾蓋·布林把他們的搜索引擎推薦給了幾乎所有愿意聽一聽的風投人士和互聯網公司，但他們得到的答復始終是：這個世界不需要一家只做互聯網搜索的公司。

最終，太陽微系統聯合創始人安迪·貝托謝姆拿出了10萬美元，谷歌就此誕生。但在一段時間里，其他人看起來好像是對的——谷歌在搜索市場中的份額很小，1999年時只有7.8%。

然后到了2000年10月，谷歌推出了AdWords。當時誰能想到搜索引擎加廣告平臺的組合會帶來一種真的能賺錢的商業模式呢？而且這種商業模式會把谷歌變成世界上最有價值、最強大的公司之一呢？

1980年，一些西裝筆挺的IBM成員找到了一位名叫比爾·蓋茨的年輕程序員，請他為個人計算機開發一款操作系統。由于蓋茨的專長是編程語言，他向這些人推薦了別人。但被推薦者沒做成這件事，蓋茨最終同意基于修改后的QDOS來開發這款操作系統。他買下QDOS時花了5萬美元。

不過，蓋茨并沒有簡單地用這款操作系統換錢了事，相反，他把DOS以非獨家形式授權給了IBM，按銷量收取授權費。微軟聯合創始人保羅·艾倫說，這種新穎的授權模式是他的主意，但這并不重要。DOS變成了Windows，成了一款無處不在的操作系統，成了逾10億臺PC和無數應用程序的基礎。

當然，并非所有成功的企業創始人都有類似的故事。但有一部分創業者建立的公司確實改變了我們平常的生活和工作方式，原因很簡單，那就是在那樣的級別上具備顛覆市場所需的眼光是一件罕見的事。而且它是如此的罕見，以至于如果不是有強烈的自信心，這些創業者的公司就絕不會成功。

可別理解錯了。把初創公司變成強大企業所需要的可不僅僅是傳統觀點所認為的韌性。在周圍的人都說你傻時，你的勇氣、自信和相信自己直覺的毅力本身并不會讓你成為下一個馬克·扎克伯格。不過，如果你的才能可以撐起這份勇氣、自信和毅力，那就絕對是個好的開始。 （財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

審稿：夏林

If you look at the world’s most valuable technology companies, you’ll notice something interesting. Not a single one invented the category of products they’ve come to define. The vast majority of their enormous profits come from markets they did not create.

Whether it’s Apple in smartphones, Google (GOOGL, +0.24%) in search, Microsoft(MSFT, +0.49%) in operating systems, Facebook (FB, +0.71%) in social networks or Amazon (AMZN, +0.24%) in ecommerce, when these companies launched, nobody could have predicted their eventual path to domination.

What does that tell us? For one thing, you don’t have to be first to be number one. But you probably already knew that. Far more important is that every one of these companies’ founders chose a ridiculously improbable path that flew in the face of conventional wisdom.

“Trust your instincts even when everyone else says you’re crazy,” is advice that’s easy to give and hard to follow. Challenging the almighty status quo to do what experts say can’t be done isn’t for the faint of heart. But that’s exactly what these founders did, ignoring the advice of the many and trusting their own focus group of one — or two.

The pundits thought Steve Jobs was absolutely insane to get into the dog-eat-dog cellphone business. In 2007, John Dvorak put into words what everyone was thinking: “Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone,” he wrote, as “there is no likelihood” it would be successful. He later called the iPad tablet a “giant iPod Touch” that would have nominal market impact.

Today, the iPhone is undoubtedly among the most successful products ever, generating more revenue than nearly every S&P 500 company. The iPad-dominated tablet market surpassed PCs in 2015, just five years after its introduction.

And let me tell you — everyone thought Apple was crazy when it opened its first retail stores in 2001.

Today, Apple stores are the most lucrative retail space in the U.S.

In 1998, Stanford graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin shopped their search engine to just about every venture capitalist and Internet company that would listen. They were repeatedly met with the same response: The world doesn’t need a stand-alone Internet search company.

Finally, one man, former Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, wrote a check for $100,000 and Google was born. But for a while, it looked like everyone was right;Google’s share of the search market was a dismal 7.8% in 1999.

Then, in October of 2000, the Silicon Valley startup launched AdWords. Who knew that the combination of search engine and advertising platform could create a business model that practically mints cash — and turn Google into one of the most valuable and powerful companies on Earth?

Way back in the summer of 1980, some suits from IBM approached a young software developer named Bill Gates about an operating system for a personal computer. Since Gates’ specialty was programming languages, he referred them to someone else. When that didn’t work out, he finally agreed to do it using a modified version of QDOS, which he bought for $50,000.

But instead of simply selling it outright for a quick profit, Gates licensed DOS to IBM on a non-exclusive per-unit royalty basis. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen said the innovative licensing model was his idea, but that’s neither here nor there. DOS became Windows and more than a billion PCs and countless apps would be built on top of that ubiquitous operating system.

Of course, not every successful founder has a comparable story. But the select group of entrepreneurs who have built companies that truly change the way we live and work usually do, for one simple reason: The kind of vision required to disrupt markets on that scale is a rare thing. So rare that if these founders did not believe strongly in themselves, their companies would never have made it.

Don’t get me wrong. It takes a lot more than perseverance in the face of conventional wisdom to turn a startup into a business powerhouse. And having the courage, self-confidence and tenacity to trust your own instincts when everyone around you says you’re nuts will not, in and of itself, make you the next Mark Zuckerberg. But if you’ve got the talent to back it up, it’s a damn good start.