Impressive. I could almost see the bayesian filtering taking place inside pg's head when he went from saying "scrap that idea" to "maybe there's something here" on Flyify, once he realized this honestly was a real problem for the founder and that maybe he just wasn't part of their target demographic. (Not saying it's viable or that pg thought so, but he was open to the fact that it could be).
Not only great at shooting down leaky abstractions, understanding different customers but also at being non-judgemental - a rare combination.
I think the founder was fooling himself: being bored waiting for an airplane is a problem, but an app that connects you to people closeby isn't gonna work.
I've had some random conversations with people in airports before, it wasn't a particularly life changing experience. I think there is probably an opportunity to provide services for people who are out of town on business better - basically at the moment the social interactions serviced by having a few beers at the hotel bar. I think grubwithus does this pretty well, but there might be other models.
Not only great at shooting down leaky abstractions, understanding different customers but also at being non-judgemental - a rare combination.