
Google didn’t begin as a brilliant vision, but as a project to improve library searches, followed by a series of small discoveries that unlocked a revolutionary business model.

Ironically, this would include the biggest business idea to come out of Stanford in decades. That always surprised me a bit, especially at an entrepreneurial hub like Stanford, since most successful entrepreneurs don’t begin with brilliant ideas-they discover them.

He can be found on Twitter I was in business school, one of the most common things I would hear people say was that they wanted to do something new-like start a company or take an unconventional career path-but that they needed “a great idea” first. His last guest post for us was on how Google is becoming more like Microsoft. His next book, from which some of this article is exclusively drawn, is Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries. Editor’s note : The following guest post is by bestselling author and former venture capitalist Peter Sims.
