The danger of working in secret is inversely proportional to the simplicity and precision of the test. It would be safe to work in secret for a year … - Paul Graham

A startup is like a mosquito. A bear can absorb a hit and a crab is armored against one, but a mosquito is designed for one thing : to score. No energy is wasted on defense. The defense of mosquitos, as a species, is that there are a lot of them, but this is little consolation to the individual mosquito.

Someone asked how to expand startups' ideas. The best way is to shrink the idea down to its essence, then ask how broadly that essential idea could be expanded. You have to shrink it first, though, or there will be random stuff left in it that impedes its expansion.

So although there may be, in certain specific moments (like your family, this month) a fixed amount of money available to trade with other people for things you want, there is not a fixed amount of wealth in the world.