This may sound off topic, but it isn't. A few years ago, a startup in Silicon Valley decided it would build and sell the ultimate, Wi-Fi enabled, self-directing toaster oven. And ridiculously expensive. As Fast Company headlined an article at the time, "This $1,500 Toaster Oven Is Everything That's Wrong With Silicon Valley Design." Following up with, "Automated yet distracting. Boastful yet mediocre. Confident yet wrong."

Being smart is terrific. It also brings danger, particularly the fallacy that proven ability in one area grants keen insight into all others. This is true for people with many types of advanced expertise, whether as a college professor, lawyer, physician, business executive — or technologist considering a new market like CRE for a "disruptive" entry.

Sarah Klearman, a reporter for the San Francisco Business Times, recently wrote about this in the context of proptech companies expecting to revolutionize construction only to crash, wasting perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars raised.