Ideas are a dime a dozen. GOOD ideas on the other hand are rare ... and much more important than "execution." DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT - THINK THIS THROUGH YOURSELF:
Assume you have an awesome ability to "exectute" and you have a well-developed rep for doing so - what kind a project would you most likely align yourself with and risk your rep for - a crappy idea, a mediocre idea, or a fantastic idea that nobody's thought of before and will change the world for the better?
See - the good idea is a prerequisite to attracting people who can execute because if you're that good, why waste time executing anything but the best ideas.
And people who have high quality ideas keep them to themselves until they can figure out a way to 1) profit from them (or at least get recognition) and 2) keep competitors from squashing them before they even take off.
I'm sorry but articles to the contrary, I've never come across a blogger who proclaims that GOOD ideas are a dime a dozen and that they give them away all the time for free .... who actually had a very good idea. Sure ... THEY thought their ideas were good, but I doubt anyone but their most loyal blog readers would agree.
In case you still disagree, try walking up to Google's headquarters and saying you'd like to drop off some flowers for your girlfriend ... I guarantee you won't get far without signing at least one NDA and having to present your ID.
But if ideas are so cheap and easy, why do companies invest so much in making sure they control them? Because they're not cheap and easy and people who never came up with any truly good ideas proclaiming, "good ideas are cheap and easy" is as insulting as saying that if you put a hundred monkeys in a room full of computers for a long enough time, eventually they'll come up with something better than Ruby on Rails to make web stuff with.
Ideas, yes. GOOD ideas that attract the best people to execute and have the ability to be transformed into $$$ ... don't kid yourself.
Please. If they knew "how to get it done" they wouldn't be here - they'd be out doing it. The reality is it's hard to figure things out like that ... a while back a VC firm called Draper Fisher even wrote a white paper on the exact mathematical formula for viral marketing. Did that help anybody? Not really. Sure - YouTube behaves according to the formula (somewhat), but that doesn't mean that they looked at the formula and said, "Aha - of course! YouTube!". Also most VCs and programmers downplay such ideas because it suggests that being a really good programmer when you make something is not as important as being able to get your thing quickly adapted, which takes skills and insights that many programmers / tech-based VCs just don't have. Heck even most business VCs don't have it - they just don't teach that at Harvard Business School ... if they did, well then they wouldn't be teaching ...
But you are correct. I doubt you'll find anybody at YC to agree with you much, because basically its an incubator by programmers for programmers. So naturally they'll downplay all the things programmers are weak at and focus on what they're already strong at (programming skills).
But you're right and that should teach you something about most VCs - after all the talk on the websites about how smart they are, market knowledge, etc., in reality 99% wouldn't know the next big thing if Next Big Thing's business plan was right in front of them.
Whaaaaaa. I bet he'd like some cheese with his whine.
I don't get it. He turned it down and then proclaims that the people who said yes to it despite it's then-lack of stellar credentials are "egotistical snobs" because they took a chance? Isn't battery the snob in this case?
Good point. Parents often get confused as to how many kids they have. Why just the other day Homer forgot to count Maggie ... and if it happens on t.v., well then we know it happens everyday in real life. I mean, 1, 2, 3 ... so hard to keep track of them all.
So then someone who pursues power sans permission is, according to you, not compromised? Well, Bush seems to be good at that ... let's see ... how's his "uncompromisability" working out? Let's see ...
Apple is arguably a very well-designed platform and gets better by specifically limiting apps by offering better quality to counter quantity. And making the pie bigger for all involved only matters if you can control the process to the extent that you decide how much you can take out of the pie to support all the extra effort that goes into increasing the whole pie; otherwise you do all the work (zerox) and everybody comes along and eats your pie (pc industry) and you're just left with war stories ("nobody knows this, but me and my team invented that - it's true"). Lookup Cournot-Nash equilibrium.
I have to ask, why do you see every dissenting opinion on a forum where people voice their opinions to be a personal attack on Mr. Graham? I mean, if 1,000 forum members all agree with everything, well then that would make 999 of them redundant, which would leave you with a baseless forum, wouldn't it? Are you his wife/girlfriend/secret admirer or something? Honestly I was joking when I put up the Y-Combinator/Cult post, but judging on some of the replies, Paul's own direct attack on my very sanity itself (as if to imply that he's the very essence of reason itself and all disagreement is a sign of insanity or something) and the wild gyrations in my karma points are starting to make me consider that perhaps my joke actually may not be that much of a joke after all. Look at your response ... "Leave our beloved leader alone!" ... Seriously how old are you? If you answer over 20, well seriously go join the peace corps, get out in the world ... there are many more important things to do than hero-worshipping William F. Buckley wannabes ...
You're both right and wrong; on the one hand it is often hard to figure out what people want based on what they say and trial and error works (lookup "skunkworks") well in many industries as long as you 1) keep failure costs low 2) have methodology to rapidly progress from failures and instantly apply insights. On the other hand, sanj is right to - there are many better ways to go about this. Think about all the things that tick you off about non-technical sites (sites that a larger audience cares about) and I guarantee you 9 times out of 10 if you go to people who use them and ask, "Why do they do this - wouldn't this be better if they did this instead?" most people would agree with you.
Fascinating; shocking. Blew my mind. Wait ... I'm starting to get the hang of this ... viola: "Every Platform is a Paradigm" ... "Every Paradigm is a Vector" ... etc. Fascinating. This will shock the world. Wasn't there a recently posted Dilbert in which this was the butt of the joke?
So then, if the system is so flawed and that's the main explanation for his success, surely with all the other candidates out there, their supporters, if they outnumber the people who agree with Ron Paul, should band together and easily negate his influence on Reddit, correct? If it only takes 100 to skew perception so much on Reddit, then multiply 100X, oh, 8 other candidates and they should have 8X the effect of Ron Paul's supporters, thus easily cancelling him out. Or are you just trying to find some gripe so you can peddle some new startup that addresses this imaginary flaw?
Does it ever get lonely up there on your pedestal? Why don't 100 guliani supporters do likewise? Why does he raise so much money from peanut online contributions while others with deep corporate connections can barely keep up? Whatever the design issues with reddit or what-have-you, let's say there are 100 amateur supporters who do manipulate things - that's 100 more than care to dedicate their free time to do so for all other candidates combined. That says just as much about the kind of enthusiasm he generates as it does any design shortcomings which could just as easily be exploited by opponents. For crying out loud it can't just be one guy with the name "Paul" that has all the spotlight all the time - stop being a fifth column and let him get his fair share.
Wow - is there anything that escapes the analytical prowess of Mr. Graham? Yes. People who like Ron Paul because he seems to be the only person who seems to actually know what he's talking about, takes a personal intellectual interest in complex matters that are outside of his field of expertise, and has promised to do away with the IRS and income taxes completely are just marginal, over-zealous nuts who conspire to skew the whole internet to make him appear more popular than he really is. That must be it. It's a well managed conspiracy by a small group of Ron Paul supporters who have intimate familiarity with the shortcomings of social news networks and exploit them tirelessly. It couldn't possibly be because the prospect of keeping your entire salary without having to pay taxes at all is a very popular sentiment across the board of political beliefs. No. It can't be because more and more conservatives are shunning the "neo" terminology and adapting the term "Reaganite Conservative", and Ron Paul was one of the original 3 behind-the-scenes power brokers who got Reagan Elected. It's not that he's the only member in congress in memory to actually give back parts of his salary that he doesn't use. Or that he's the only Republican candidate like, ever to appeal to more young voters than the democratic counterpart. No it's all just a design screw-up. Because Paul says so.
Assume you have an awesome ability to "exectute" and you have a well-developed rep for doing so - what kind a project would you most likely align yourself with and risk your rep for - a crappy idea, a mediocre idea, or a fantastic idea that nobody's thought of before and will change the world for the better?
See - the good idea is a prerequisite to attracting people who can execute because if you're that good, why waste time executing anything but the best ideas.
And people who have high quality ideas keep them to themselves until they can figure out a way to 1) profit from them (or at least get recognition) and 2) keep competitors from squashing them before they even take off.
I'm sorry but articles to the contrary, I've never come across a blogger who proclaims that GOOD ideas are a dime a dozen and that they give them away all the time for free .... who actually had a very good idea. Sure ... THEY thought their ideas were good, but I doubt anyone but their most loyal blog readers would agree.
In case you still disagree, try walking up to Google's headquarters and saying you'd like to drop off some flowers for your girlfriend ... I guarantee you won't get far without signing at least one NDA and having to present your ID.
But if ideas are so cheap and easy, why do companies invest so much in making sure they control them? Because they're not cheap and easy and people who never came up with any truly good ideas proclaiming, "good ideas are cheap and easy" is as insulting as saying that if you put a hundred monkeys in a room full of computers for a long enough time, eventually they'll come up with something better than Ruby on Rails to make web stuff with.
Ideas, yes. GOOD ideas that attract the best people to execute and have the ability to be transformed into $$$ ... don't kid yourself.