Ideas are Worthless, Execution is Priceless

http://www.bauerfive.com/?p=56

by d_c • 16 years ago

14 14 16 years ago

seiwyn• 16 years ago

I disagree with the title. Not all ideas are good ideas, so having an idea that is worth executing is certianly not worthless.

Obviously, if you dont execute it then it becomes worthless.

norswap• 16 years ago

A nice take on the subject : http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_value_of_ideas/

prs• 16 years ago

The headline makes me revisit http://sivers.org/multiply.

Execution is in (almost) all cases the hard part of the equation.

kenjackson4• 16 years ago

If ideas had more intrinsic value, there'd probably be a market for ideas. But really there is none. Almost no one is willing to pay you for an idea.

The closest we come to such a market is the patent market. But again here, it is virtually never the case that a company buys another company to actually implement its ideas. When was the last time you heard that a patent troll was bought in order to create a product? Never (or rarely).

andrewljohnson• 16 years ago

I disagree. I don't consider "ideas" to be elevator pitches about projects. I consider "ideas" to be fundamental insights about markets or software or technology, and there is a huge market for this, whether that's consulting or a product business or a hybrid.

Just because people don't get paid to glibly shoot their mouthes off (usually), doesn't mean there is no meaningful market for ideas.

kenjackson4• 16 years ago

People I know in consulting don't get paid for their ideas. They get paid for their results and their experience in tackling certain types of problems.

Fundamentally, the ideas don't stand on their own. Their backed by a name institution that delivers results on the ideas.

Ideas are nice, but they're a dime a dozen.

ramy_d• 16 years ago

think tanks.

kenjackson4• 16 years ago

Having worked at a think tank, think tanks don't get paid for their ideas. At least not in the way we're discussing them. They get paid for doing research and folding this reseach into policy.

Let me put it another way. The recommendations that a think tank comes up with isn't worth the paper it's printed on without the weeks/months of backup research that shows how the recommendations came about. That's what is being paid for, not the idea/recommendation.

InclinedPlane• 16 years ago

Ideas are plenty valuable, some of them very much so (e.g. "germs cause disease"). But ideas without good execution are worthless. And teams who execute well tend to avoid being shackled to bad ideas, they'll transform them to good ideas along the way.

xcv• 16 years ago

Ideas are not worthless, ideas are the foundation of everything. The problem with this post, and indeed of many of the Hacker News acolytes, is the mistaken belief that "worth" is only measured in dollars. This is a narrow-hearted and ignorant attitude certain to end in misery. Can you say "GFC"? Ideas without good execution are NOT worthless. Execution without a good idea is a distraction from life, and unfortunately many in the "startup" game are terminally distracted, resulting in an endless stream of tech-based companies that trot out unimaginative versions of a half-baked idea vaguely related to "web community" or "crowd sourcing", but measured only in terms of "worth" as it relates to (imaginary) money. These execution-without-idea projects are completely unconcerned with the real meaning of "worth", ie, that which contributes meaningfully to the growth of love and compassion.

equark• 16 years ago

This statement is becoming incredibly cliche. Ideas are not sufficient but they are necessary. There are many well executed but fundamentally worthless products. I find most startups mentioned on hacker news well executed but I often just can't get excited by them because the underlying idea is so uninteresting and trivial. It's actually a sad waste of talent.

GBKS• 16 years ago

The egg is worthless, the chicken is priceless.

You need both. One is the beginnging of the road, the other is the end. Many things happen in between. Let's not see the world so black and white please.

Ideas are Worthless, Execution is Priceless

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