Ideas are Worthless, Execution is Priceless

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.

I disagree with the title. Not all ideas are good ideas, so having an idea that is worth executing is certianly not worthless.<p>Obviously, if you dont execute it then it becomes worthless.

The headline makes me revisit <a href="http://sivers.org/multiply" rel="nofollow">http://sivers.org/multiply</a>.<p>Execution is in (almost) all cases the hard part of the equation.

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.<p>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).

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.

A nice take on the subject : <a href="http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_value_of_ideas/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_value_of_ideas/</a>

Ideas are plenty valuable, some of them very much so (e.g. "germs cause disease"). But ideas <i>without</i> 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.

The egg is worthless, the chicken is priceless.<p>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.