
Paul Buchheit: Ideas vs Judgment and Execution: Climbing the Mountain - paul
http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2008/03/ideas-vs-judgment-and-execution_9197.html
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nostrademons
The way I see it, ideas are important. It's just that you need _hundreds_ of
good ideas in order to get to the top. And they all have to build on each
other, and you'll find that you have thousands of bad ideas that seem like
good ideas at first and only turn out to be dead ends when you try them.

Really, what's execution other than all the ideas that you have _after_ you've
picked a direction?

That's why I'm skeptical of self-proclaimed "idea people". They tend to have
one great idea and fixate upon it, not realizing that they've gotten maybe 1%
of the way there, and need to think up 99 other great ideas before their one
great idea is worthwhile.

~~~
Tichy
I think an "idea person" would by definition have more than one good idea. If
as you say 99 great ideas are necessary to make it to the top, an idea person
might be the right person for the project?

Many people don't seem to have any ideas at all, their whole inspiration for
life comes from TV and magazines. I prefer idea people. Execution would be
even better, of course. But why not talk to the idea people you know and help
them execute?

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webwright
I've always had trouble with PG's "proof" that ideas are worthless. Selling
ideas doesn't work because to demonstrate that they are worth selling, you
have to give them away.

There are plenty of people who get paid a ton of money for ideas-- simply by
having demonstrated a good track record of ideas in the past. Authors and
speakers (Seth Godin, for example) get paid piles of money for ideas that come
with zero execution.

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Sam_Odio
This reminds me of the lemon problem in economics:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons>

It's not that ideas are worthless, just like my car isn't worthless. But it's
hard to know what a car's worth until it's driven, and it's even harder to
know what an idea's worth until it's executed on.

Therefore, no market for ideas develops. Nobody buys ideas, since unlike cars,
you can't exactly take them out for a "test-drive."

In the few places you do see a market, it's usually because information exists
about the value of the idea. For example, patent trolls buy patents(ideas) to
sue companies that are already infringing(executing) them.

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emmett
I think the most interesting consequence of this idea is the realization that
the origin of the idea alters its value.

Evidence that an idea is good can come in many forms, but it's rare that
external evidence changes your mind unless it comes from someone you respect.

~~~
yariv
I don't think this is always the case. I think that many good ideas are
obviously good regardless of their origin and even in the absence of external
evidence. You can tell those ideas are good because they solve real problems
in people's lives (Ebay, Yahoo, Craigslist, Amazon, Hotmail, etc, are all
based on obviously good ideas).

To use Paul's analogy, some pots of gold are at the top of mountains, but
others are visible on the flatlands, and only speed of execution determines
who will win them.

~~~
paul
Those ideas are obviously good in hindsight, but at the time a lot people
thought that they were bad ideas or businesses. (what "idea" is Yahoo btw?)

~~~
yariv
Indeed it's often impossible to know if a new idea could lead to a profitable
business (or how profitable that business would be), but at least you can have
a good hunch that the idea would be something people want.

The original Yahoo idea was a centralized directory of web pages, wasn't it?

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musiciangames
I just read this, and wondered what would have happened if Babbage had 'picked
one mountain to climb', and focused on that. [http://www.nabble.com/-squeak-
dev--The-Old-Man-td16386810.ht...](http://www.nabble.com/-squeak-dev--The-Old-
Man-td16386810.html)

Babbage had lots of ideas that appear spot-on, but seems to have lacked in the
execution side.

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antirez
A way to make both the theories valid is that the good team eventually will
find a good idea, and the reality is that to define how this good team is
composed is very hard. For example hard-core technicians may not be what you
want to write web applications: you need smart programmers but also in your
team you need people that are themselves __web users __and able to understand
how other people interact with the web and what is cool about it. A lot of
high profile programmers have some kind of reject for the web that will not be
helpful trying to come with a great idea and to realize it well (because the
web is not a lot about great code but a mix of great code, great UI, great way
to talk to your users, great ability to do the right selection of features,
...).

So simply there is not a recipe :) but this is what it makes this startup
world cool and less deterministic than a Windows kernel.

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prakash
I agree with you, judgement i.e. decision making is very very important. One
needs to understand the art & science of decision making in general and from
an individual perspective how that individual (you) makes decisions and then
apply that to any decision making, be it startups or buying a car.

This is why it's important to read, understand and internalize essay's and
books from folks like Charlie Munger, Robert Cialdini, Scott Plous from a
decision making perspective, and folks like PG, Marc Andreessen and yourself
from a startup perspective.

 _Re: There are also people wandering around in the flat lands near the
mountains._

Most of these folks suffer from cognitive dissonance :-)

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stener
I was thinking about music band metaphor. Like, they compose songs- what is
for them better- great skills or great melody/text? I prefer great melody/text
even mediocre played. And btw music bands often play in garages too :)

~~~
Tichy
And there is the weird phenomenon of studio musicians - great skills, but no
ideas?

~~~
stener
yes and that brings me to other professions as in the film industry. E.g. this
year the Academy Award for best Music (Song) was won by movie Once, which on
technical and execution side looks amateurish compared to Hollywood
blockbusters. In this case, the idea won Oscar.

I think to compare different kind of artist and their craft among themselves
is valid.

~~~
pius
To be fair though, the execution in the category Once won for was superb. Note
that they did not win for, say, cinematography.

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johnrob
I'm glad you pointed out that contradiction. I've been aware of it for a
while, but I couldn't really express it. I think you present a good
'unification' theory.

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iamelgringo
I think that part of the problem with the whole idea vs execution debate is
that it's an artificial consequence of our patent and copyright system.
Patent/copyright law is based on the premise that if you have an idea,
document it and someone else uses that idea later, you "own" the idea and they
might have to pay you. Those are really artificial constraints.

In any other creative endeavor: painting, sculpture, music it's the idea +
execution that truly matters. If either one fails, your creation gets
forgotten. I'd venture that any creator of Art, Science, Music, etc... knows
the absurdity of "owning" the idea of of their creation. To the painter, the
idea is simple a picture in your head. To anyone else, the idea of a melting
clock sliding off a table is just an acid trip. After Salvadore Dali committed
it to canvas, it was art. To anyone else, images of people and things as
geometric blocks is just a little weird. After being executed by Picasso, it
changed the world of art.

It's the idea + execution that matters.

~~~
brlewis
That has never been the premise of copyright, and patent law did not work that
way up until about 20 years ago.

In theory, ideas were never supposed to be patentable. A patent had to show
both an idea and a specific implementation of it. Only with the increase of
legally-questionable patents on software and business methods have ideas been
patented.

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aston
"I've thought about this for a bit and realized that both camps ... are wrong,
at least when stated so simply."

Applies to basically every pair of controversial and/or reasonably substantial
claims on the web. Obviously the right answer is always "it depends." But I
already knew that, having read two opposing viewpoints and synthesized their
conclusions.

In summary: C'mon, pick a side!

~~~
mixmax
Sometimes one side is just plainly wrong.

The debate about evolution versus Intelligent design is an example.

~~~
dbreunig
Natural selection is a great example for more than one reason: Darwin wasn't
the very first to think it, but Origin of the Species is perhaps the most
beautiful science ever written.

~~~
mixmax
Darwin actually held back Origin species for more than ten years because it
clashed with his religious beliefs. He only released it when Alfred Russell
Wallace sent him a letter asking him to look through a new theory on
evolution, which of course was the exact same one that Darwin had come up with
many years before.

And yes I agree with you - the implications of this theory are so broad that
with a bit of stretching it can probably explain the whole field of
psychology. An amazing insight.

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god
Grahams proof for "ideas are worthless" is that there is no market for ideas.
No market means no demand. No demand means no value.

Buchheit says that there is a market for ideas - the VC market: "If someone
with a history of being right also has a capable team of climbers who have
demonstrated the technical skill and judgment to climb other mountains, then
that is very valuable, and they will have no trouble getting their idea
funded."

I tend to think that Buchheit is wrong an Graham is right. Buchheits VC market
is not a market of ideas. "Funding" doesnt mean buying ideas.

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danielrhodes
Isn't exercising good judgment also part of the execution? I don't see a huge
difference.

In the end, everything effects everything, and you are forced to come to the
realization that you can't do anything...which is why you should do whatever
you want and not look back.

If you think you have a good idea, give it a shot. See how sticky it is in
your own mind, and those who you talk to. If things don't work out, pick
yourself back up, and try again. Hopefully you will have learned something.

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Alex3917
"Idea * Judgment * Ability * Determination * Luck = $$$"

FYI, there is a preexisting model from organizational behavior saying that
success = ability * motivation * opportunity. I only mention it because there
is some interesting OB research into the different components of the AMO
framework, although I don't really know the names of any particularly
insightful papers offhand.

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morbidkk
I would say you would forced to change your idea if you are not providing what
market wants. Either you loose or you change the course of pursuit. Or as
Apple did; you toil long and hard to create a market which wasnt existing
apparently. In the later case you convince your idea to market.

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brlewis
Paul, is there something in this essay that people who are already attempting
good judgment and execution can take away from it? On first reading it looks
like the audience is (1) idea guys or (2) people who execute, but
underestimate the value of judgment.

~~~
paul
I was mainly just trying to resolve an apparent contradiction and find a good
metaphor to structure my thoughts. It's not advice, so much as understanding.
Ultimately, understanding is better than advice anyway.

~~~
brlewis
I use another metaphor: air

Air is worthless. Air has no market value. But nobody can say air is
unimportant.

If you have clean air and want to make money, you need the right execution:
You need to combine your clean air with things that people can enjoy along
with it. If you build and run a great resort, lots of people will come.
They'll say it's the air that keeps them coming back. Hearing that, the idea
guys who always talked about selling air will feel vindicated. They'll
underestimate the importance of you getting the details right on your resort.

~~~
apexauk
is air worthless, or _price_less?

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jyu
Idea * Judgment * Ability * Determination * Luck = $$$

Four of the five are qualities of the team.

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andreyf
The idea-mountain metaphor seems to lose the plasticity of ideas. From my
understanding, more often than not, ideas change during execution.

Mathematically speaking, the space of ideas is continuous (in many
dimensions).

~~~
paul
Yes, the metaphor is imperfect. Perhaps you can imagine that the top of the
mountain is in the clouds, so although the initial idea is to "go that way",
you don't really know exactly where you are going until you've arrive.

~~~
andreyf
I'm not sure what the point is of drawing any of these metaphors - a market is
important because you want to make something useful, and execution is
important because you want to beat your competition. If you don't have a
market, you lose in the start, if you don't have proper execution, you lose to
competition. So do both.

So ideas without execution _are_ worthless. And good execution of a market-
less idea is also worthless.

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mynameishere
Once you've settled upon an idea, it's maybe best to really believe "Ideas are
worthless" in order to stay monomaniacal about the one at hand.

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edw519
Nice metaphor: mountain climbing - startups.

Wish it were my idea.

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sanj
"apparently the gold flows intermittently in this analogy"

It's nice to see commentary from someone that worked during the last dotcom
crash.

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hs
i read somewhere about kasparov vs deep blue, paraphrasing "kasparov didn't
win by exploring every moves (he won't have time), he won by ignoring the ones
which don't work"

so maybe if ideas are treated as "spam", one needs to develop good filter
around it

