告诉HN：全职创始人的思考与烦恼 第一部分
我对副标题的讨论是开放式的问题，带有背景，而不是答案或解决方案。
### 对抗闪亮物体综合症
闪亮物体综合症的官方定义：被新奇和令人兴奋的想法、工具或项目分散注意力的习惯，进而放弃当前的工作。
或许是由于人工智能的影响，现在有太多的机会和突破性创新正在发生。假设在一个拥挤的室内体育馆里，有500个人，初看时看似看台上座无虚席，每个人手中都拿着一张看似中奖的彩票。你并不知道谁手中的彩票金额最高，也无法快速对它们进行价值排序。但此时，你正处于篮球场的中央，手里拿着一个自行车气筒，气喘吁吁地抽动手柄，试图给一个半瘪的篮球充气。此时，似乎并不重要哪张中奖彩票的金额更高或更低，因为它们的价值都远远超过你认为自己手中所持的任何东西。那些人正在做的事情显然是有效的，而你正在做的，给这个篮球充气，似乎并没有什么效果。但是，即使你给自己一个暂停，考虑一下是否要拿走你能看到的那些彩票，你也会被眼前500张彩票的真实情况压得喘不过气来，甚至无法决定要拿哪一张。你心中隐隐有种怀疑，或许那些拿着彩票的人并没有他们表现得那么简单。也许他们也曾有过和你一样的感觉。因此，你勉强决定继续给这个瘪掉的篮球充气，只是在幻想着拥有其中一张中奖彩票。
这不仅仅关乎金钱，每个人都想站在“事物的前沿”，在那里真正的变化和结果发生。
这正是闪亮物体综合症在人工智能时代对创业者的真实感受，尤其是对于那些有技术背景的创始人而言。就我个人而言，作为一个自行车工具的制造者，即使我的产品具有创新性并且与市场契合度（PMF）强，但在当前数十亿、数万亿美元的资金流动面前，给篮球充气的感觉就像是固执地选择继续这一行为。它不仅看起来如此，实际上我心中还盘旋着十几个商业想法，初步挖掘后可能蕴含着1000倍的潜力。
创业者总是谈论“转型”，但真正区分转型和追逐闪亮物体的是什么呢？不能简单地说转型就是从没有PMF到拥有PMF的过渡，因为从平庸的PMF到卓越的PMF也是一种“有效转型”。但如果你认为从转型前的视角看到的“卓越PMF”其实就是那闪亮的物体呢？你无法承受浪费在当前PMF上的时间、精力和资源，然后重新开始却发现转型并不值得。当然，良好的转型与闪亮物体综合症之间的区别在于，你是否正确判断了放弃当前PMF努力去追求另一个的价值。
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My discussion of subheaders are open-ended questions with context, not answers or solutions.<p>Combatting Shiny Object Syndrome<p>Shiny Object Syndrome official definition: the habit of getting distracted by new and exciting ideas, tools, or projects and abandoning your current work<p>Perhaps due to AI, there are too many opportunities and too much breakthrough innovation happening right now. Suppose there is a crowded indoor gymnasium of 500 people, the bleachers are full upon first glance, and each person is holding what appears to be a winning lottery ticket. You don’t really know who has the highest dollar ticket nor can you quickly sort them in value. But currently, you’re in the middle of the basketball court with a bicycle tire pump, breathing hard and pumping the handle to fill a half-deflated basketball with air. At the moment, it doesn’t really seem to matter which winning ticket is higher or lower in exact dollar value because they’re all ten thousand times more than what you think you’re holding. Whatever those people are doing is working (clearly) and whatever this is that you’re doing, pumping this ball I suppose, doesn’t seem to be working. But even if you allow yourself a pause to consider taking one of those tickets you can see, you’re too overwhelmed by the sheer truth that there are 500 of them in front of you to even decide on one to take. There is the restraint of a lingering suspicion that perhaps it’s not as easy as those people holding tickets make it seem. Perhaps they too felt the same way as you. So, you reluctantly decide to just keep pumping the deflated basketball, and only fantasize about having one of those winning tickets.<p>It’s not only about money, but everyone wants to be on the “cutting edge of things” where real change and results are.<p>This is exactly what shiny object syndrome feels like to a founder in the era of AI, especially one who has a technical background. And for myself personally building bicycle tools, even if it is innovative with strong product-market fit (PMF), it feels like stubbornly choosing to pump the basketball in the wake of billions and trillions of dollars moving between hands right now. It doesn’t just look and feel like that, I’m containing a literal dozen business ideas that on first dig would contain 1000x the amount of oil.<p>Entrepreneurs are all about “pivoting,” but truly what distinguishes a pivot from chasing a shiny object? One cannot claim a pivot is simply the transition from no PMF to having PMF, because going from mediocre PMF to exceptional PMF is a “valid pivot.” But what if that “exceptional PMF” you think you see from a pre-pivot perspective is simply that: the shiny object. You can’t afford to waste the time, effort, and resources you’ve put into your current PMF only to restart and find out the pivot wasn’t worth it. Of course, the difference between a good pivot and shiny object syndrome was whether you were right about throwing away your current PMF efforts for another.