This is all on the topic of gradual improvement vs doing a leap forward. Most of the things can be gradually improved from something small. Take as an example an issue tracker. You can start as small as you like (a file with a list of issues to deal with) and go towards a reasonable solution.
The problem is not every single problem in the world can be broken down into such pieces. Take for example a fashionable electric car from Tesla. There is no reasonable way how you can start an electric car from a gasoline car (put an extra electrict motor? you end up with hybrid. take away the gasoline motor? you end up with a horse cart) and tesla did not even have a gasoline car to start with.
There are both kinds of problem and I agree most startups, especially in the social world can be implemented in gradual steps that make sense. The problem with other problems is that first you have to understand the problem area really well. A very good start is to try the gradual way and fail at it, later to start a leapfrog approach, knowing the problem area.
The Tesla Roadster was a modified Lotus Elise with off the shelf components combined with an off the shelf electric engine and a container of common laptop batteries all coordinated with on board software. They used this base to design the Model S. Giant leaps or explosive growth are only called as such by naive people who weren't watching the thing being painstakingly set up over many years. Everything is a slow burn - there are no explosions - only ignorance and inattention.
Furthermore the design occurred mostly in simulations in a gradual, agglomerative, iterative fashion just like most software. It's why they can bring out cars so quickly nowadays.
Your argument is the same as the creationists. Everything is iterative evolution. There are no leaps of faith, miracles or gods - just directed random evolution.
"The Tesla Roadster was a modified Lotus Elise with off the shelf components combined with an off the shelf electric engine and a container of common laptop batteries all coordinated with on board software"
You call it evolutionary I call it a leap, IMO it still took quite a bit of effort. The point is nothing in between was working good enough to show as the famous MVP.
Giant leaps are also sometimes called by people who did the leap itself, even if it did not look a leap from the outside.
The problem is not every single problem in the world can be broken down into such pieces. Take for example a fashionable electric car from Tesla. There is no reasonable way how you can start an electric car from a gasoline car (put an extra electrict motor? you end up with hybrid. take away the gasoline motor? you end up with a horse cart) and tesla did not even have a gasoline car to start with.
There are both kinds of problem and I agree most startups, especially in the social world can be implemented in gradual steps that make sense. The problem with other problems is that first you have to understand the problem area really well. A very good start is to try the gradual way and fail at it, later to start a leapfrog approach, knowing the problem area.
My 2 cents.