Kyle Harrison
concept

Pattern Recognition

Pattern Recognition

Stub page — auto-generated from wikilink references. Not yet written. Referenced in 1 wiki page.

Where this appears

  • Everyone Knows the Speed at… (tweet)

An Apple Notes capture on this topic is held privately in the wiki.

Saved 2026-09-01. Bare URLs from the Apple Notes capture, archived so the citation survives the link.

D’Arcy Coolican — “I’ve seen this before, it didn’t work”

Routed here by Kyle 2026-09-01, who supplied the underlying Substack URL for a LinkedIn share.

  • I’ve Seen This Before, It Didn’t Work — D’Arcy Coolican (a16z), September 12, 2023. https://darcy.substack.com/p/ive-seen-this-before-it-didnt-work. Full capture on that page.
  • The LinkedIn share Kyle originally saved: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/darcycoolican_ive-seen-this-before-it-didnt-work-startups-activity-7107404542169743361-ynmx

This is the most important source on this page, because it argues the concept is a liability. Most material here treats pattern recognition as a skill to develop. Coolican’s case is that the phrase “I’ve seen this before” is a pattern-match that skips the only question that matters — what changed. “Midjourney looks a lot like the 100 digital design startups that failed”; it worked on generative models plus Discord distribution. Chewy against Pets.com. Frank against Lending Club.

His three-question test is the practical residue: has this failed before, why did it fail, am I genuinely different. And: “Don’t ignore them, but don’t let their baggage stop you.”

The inversion worth carrying: familiarity can be an asset — “consumers favour things they know” — so a previously-failed idea arrives with a market that already understands the pitch. That flips the usual use of the objection entirely.

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