Ripe Ideas
In 1962, four different companies launched discount retail chains: Kresge opened Kmart, F.W. Woolworth started Woolco, Dayton-Hudson opened Target, and an independent in Rogers, Arkansas, opened Walmart. The same year. Four different founders, scattered across the country, who'd never met—all acting on the same idea at the same time.
This wasn't coincidence. The idea was ripe.
In the 1990s, it was impossible for search engines not to be invented. They were inevitable. Larry Page and Sergey Brin didn't create the first search engine. They created the best one. What made them remarkable wasn't that they had the idea—the idea was already there, hanging in the air like fruit ready to be picked. What made them remarkable was that they succeeded in executing it.
Ideas, it turns out, have a life of their own. They ripen according to their own schedule. And when their time comes, they'll find someone to bring them into the world—with or without you.