Hexagram 61: 中孚

Launch strategy circa 1991 versus 2025 hasn't changed much in essence. The market-speak approach says: build hype first, sell the vision before the substance exists, create excitement, manage perception, manufacture anticipation. Get people interested in what you're going to build. The Linux announcement went the other direction entirely. Linus had working code—not complete, not professional, but functional. He posted to a technical newsgroup: 'I'm doing this thing, it's just a hobby, here's what works, here's what doesn't, feedback welcome.' The substance preceded the announcement. The inner truth was there before he talked about it. Here's what the classical text makes explicit: 'The crane calls from the shade; its young answers. It may be quite hidden when it sounds its call; yet its young will hear its note, will recognize it and give answer.' You don't need the hype machine if the work is real. The people who understand what you're doing will recognize it. They'll respond. The circle grows naturally, not through marketing but through actual substance calling to those who can perceive it. The failure mode is trying to fake inner truth through better messaging. This doesn't work. People who actually understand the domain—the ones whose contributions you need—will immediately recognize whether the substance is there. The facade of truth without the reality produces exactly what Confucius warned about: 'The cock crows at dawn. But it cannot itself fly to heaven. It just crows. A man may count on mere words to awaken faith. This may succeed now and then, but if persisted in, it will have bad consequences.' Linus's announcement was almost comically modest: 'just a hobby, won't be big and professional.' But the code was real. He'd already ported bash and gcc. The thing actually worked. That inner truth—verifiable, testable, real—extended outward. By 1992, serious contributors. By 1994, version 1.0. By 2000, running infrastructure that mattered. Make the thing real first. Make it genuinely useful, even if small in scope. Then share it honestly, without inflating what it is or what it might become. The force of inner truth will extend outward if the truth is actually there. If the truth isn't there, no amount of announcement strategy will compensate. Do the work. Ship the working code. The influence follows, or it doesn't—but at least you're not crowing about flying to heaven while standing on the ground.