What Are You Waiting For?

I was in my early 20s in New York in my first business with Peter. Neither of us particularly liked doing recruiting. I grew to like it after a while but at that time I didn’t. We were trying to figure out what to do next together. We thought of buying the taxi medallion and hiring people to drive for us. It was the 1970s. It seemed like a good idea at that time. No software could have ever generated Uber then.

We thought of buying roof rights on Manhattan apartment buildings and building tennis courts under bubbles there. Great idea but couldn’t raise the money for it. I always wondered what would happen to our bubble if a hurricane struck.

Then came the big idea. It was the one that we thought couldn’t miss until it did and someone came up with a better idea.

We started working on a patent for a coffee lid that would allow you to keep the coffee hot with a little rip to the piece of plastic. We figured you could walk around with that little hole on the top from ripping it open and sip your coffee, too.

Many years later I can laugh at an even simpler solution — just leave a freaking hole in the top of the lid for people to sip and have it rounded to match people’s lips.

Ah, the trillion-dollar idea we missed.