There’s a paperclip I still remember. Two cartoon eyes, a bend of metal, and that ever-so-eager question:
“It looks like you’re writing a letter. Would you like help?”
Clippy, the animated assistant in Microsoft Office, was built to support us. To be helpful. But most of us just wanted it to disappear.
I closed it every time. Without hesitation. Not because it was evil (though, let’s be honest, it sometimes felt like it), but because it interrupted. It was too insistent. Too present. Clippy was an idea ahead of its time, launched into a world that wasn’t quite ready to talk to software.
Strangely enough, I’ve been thinking about Clippy a lot lately. Especially now that I talk to GPTs every single day, voluntarily. They ask me the same question: “How can I help you?”
And this time, I reply.
So what changed?
Not the idea. That stayed the same. But the ecosystem matured. The tech caught up. Users evolved. Design got better. We’ve shifted, I’ve shifted. Culturally, technologically, emotionally. We’re ready now in a way we simply weren’t before.
Which brings me to Segway.
Another example of too much, too soon.
When it launched in 2001, Segway was supposed to revolutionize personal mobility. It had the buzz. The patents. Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos were reportedly impressed. Investors lined up. Urban landscapes were supposed to transform around it.
And then… nothing. Or worse: mockery.
Segway didn’t become a revolution. It became a tourist cliché. A mall cop meme. A symbol of promise unmet.
What went wrong? Again, not the product. It worked, and it was innovative. But there was no real infrastructure. No obvious user base. No cultural readiness. Then, two decades later, you walk through Milan, Rome, or Paris, and the streets are full of electric scooters. Lightweight, cheap, app-connected. Same goal, different time.
You want another one? Google Glass.
Sleek. Sci-fi. Ambitious. A wearable augmented reality headset that promised to change how we see the world. Literally. Except it didn’t.
Google Glass triggered privacy concerns, cultural resistance, and a brand-new insult: “Glasshole.” People weren’t ready to be filmed at the coffee shop. The product didn’t fail technically. It failed socially. Once again: great idea, wrong moment. Especially considering how eager we still are to wear smart glasses.
Clippy. Segway. Google Glass. Three innovations. All backed by vision, funding, and solid engineering. All missing the same elusive ingredient: timing.
Here’s the real lesson.
Success isn’t just about building the right thing. It’s about building the right thing at the right time.
We glorify innovation. We hunt for unicorns, disruption, category-defining genius. But maybe (just maybe) we need to pay more attention to context. To when, not just what. Because being first isn’t always a win. Sometimes the smartest ideas are the ones that wait. That evolve. That land softly, when the world is finally ready.
Failure doesn’t always mean the idea was bad. Sometimes, it may mean it just arrived too soon.
So here’s to Clippy, Segway, and Google Glass, pioneers of the almost-right. Their ghosts still linger in our conversations about the future. And they leave us with one quiet reminder: even the best ideas need to wait their turn.
