

The Fallacy of Execution, or Why Mark Doesn't Talk About Facebook's Origins - thinkcomp
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-greenspan/sex-and-the-fallacy-of-ex_b_309304.html

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olefoo
It's somewhat sad to see someone so obviously talented waste that talent on
building a career focused on the resentful reliving of being ill-done by. No
matter how successful the ill-doer became.

Aaron, don't let the facebook that got away be the defining chapter in your
life; build something new and amazing that you will be remembered for.

~~~
swombat
I echo that sentiment. Enough with the Facebook envy. Whether right or wrong
in this from a moral standpoint, there _has_ to be something more productive
worth doing with your time than to keep harping on about this sorry issue for
the rest of your life.

Maybe you should have "won". Maybe not. We can debate this until kingdom come,
to our collective embarrassment. The fact remains, Mark Zuckerberg _is_
Facebook's CEO and you're not. Get over it. Start another company. Are you a
one-idea man? Was this the only idea you were capable of having in your
lifetime?

I make no judgement on the claims of idea theft (as porous as the very idea of
idea theft might be), but leave you with an extract from this little big poem
([http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Rudyard_Kipling/kipl...](http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Rudyard_Kipling/kipling_if.htm)):

    
    
      (...)
      
      If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken 
      Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, 
      Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, 
      And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
      
      If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
      And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, 
      And lose, and start again at your beginnings 
      And never breath a word about your loss; 
      
      (...)
      
      Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, 
      And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

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softbuilder
Time wasting fluff. If by some miracle you came here to the comments before
reading the piece, skip it.

~~~
petercooper
I usually read the HN comments before the article and so I didn't read this
piece, but... I already bought and read Aaron's _Authoritas_ book so have read
200+ pages of this sort of stuff before. Oops.. :) (Oddly, though, I'd still
recommend the book. I couldn't put it down - it was like watching a car crash
in slow motion.)

~~~
lamby
Out of interest, do you take any steps to ensure your viewpoint isn't biased
by the comments before reading a linked piece?

~~~
petercooper
Luckily, most of the posts on Hacker News that I find interesting don't lend
themselves to biases (i.e. the non political or evangelical posts).

With the more political or evanglical posts, though, I think the human mind is
wired to defend its initial opinion for a certain amount of time no matter
what it reads ;-)

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dtf
_...of all the business clichés in the world, there is none that I hear more,
and that I hate more, than the vague, poorly-defined and generally ill-
conceived notion that "execution" is more important than "the idea."_

Oh, how the truth hurts. I actually got this far before I bothered to read the
name of the author. If Mark Zuckerberg made this point it would have weight,
but as it stands it's just another bunch of sour grapes.

~~~
omouse
It can be both sour grapes and the truth.

~~~
kelnos
I personally wouldn't suggest that you can get by with great execution on a
crappy idea (or crappy execution of a great idea), but given the author's past
history, one could easily make the conclusion that it's mostly just sour
grapes. And while reading about truth is a good thing, I find it's not worth
the read if the truth is wrapped in overblown angst and already-beaten-to-
death accusations.

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chrischen
Wow the author obviously doesn't get "execution."

Of course "idea" and "execution" should be defined properly. When people say
"execution is more important than the idea," the idea is what you come up with
your unaided intelligence, and execution is your ability to refine that idea
and stay objective towards your goals. In this case the "idea" is not
important because when you "execute" it, any one idea will morph and change
constantly. Even if considering the ideas you come up with collectively, it's
still less important because improving an idea is always possible even if they
are small improvements.

The author apparently doesn't really understand what "idea" means. So if I was
dumb enough to try a disposable jumble jet, the original idea doesn't matter
because after I try to create such a product and fail, I will choose to ditch
that idea. Eventually my idea will get better as I continuously hit brick
walls if they suck. The rate at which I can learn from mistakes and avoid
brick walls is execution. While you can still improve your innate execution
ability, it's much harder to improve that than the idea. For this reason, idea
is less important than execution.

Simply put, the idea is the formula you come up with before testing it, and
the execution is your ability to adapt your idea to reality. Your formulae
will be plenty and disposable, your ability to be objective and adapt your
formulae is much more important because it is the engine to which your
formulae power.

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noonespecial
Don't forget (and this is probably more important in this case than usual)
_luck_. The nature of social networks favors one network that "everyone is
on". Which one gets chosen probably has more to do with luck than the
execution of the site. All it took was a few random people to stumble upon it
and _"but all my friends are on facebook"_ took it from there.

If you'd like a counterpoint that favors execution, I hear that you can do
pretty well just selling shoes...

~~~
gscott
I believe personality is more important then luck, although some things are
just lucky (pentyoffish.com) but people who have great personalities, you just
like them but you don't know why, they usually succeed.

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lionhearted
The reason execution is stressed over ideas is that non-businesspersons
frequently think, "I've got this idea that's going to make me rich!"

It's actually incredibly common. Anyone that's been on the business side of a
business doesn't think that way, and most engineering people don't think that
way, but people that don't work hands-on with the grimy, mucky, slogging
reality of business believe in the myth of a great idea.

Ideas without execution = nothing. Execution of even a mildly valuable idea =
quite valuable. Most of the people I know who built large fortunes didn't
invent something new or crazy. Lots of real estate and development, turning
one space in the world into a more valuable space. One gentleman I know buys
properties in high rent areas that are normally not profitable, and converts
them into vacation/short term rental properties for businessmen staying in
town who want a more "homey" place. So he's able to turn traditionally
cashflow-neutral or negative properties into profitable ones with a just a bit
of added active management and marketing.

Brilliant idea? Meh, not so much. Great execution.

There's lots more. I have one acquaintance who is investing and working on
various technologies for spaceflight, so maybe he'll do some breakthrough
crazy stuff later, but most of the wealthy people I know don't do anything so
flashy or remarkable. It's just all execution of ages old ideas, like buy a
space and renovate it into a nicer, more valuable space. Provide a service
lots of people use for cheaper. Provide a higher quality service that is
currently well used that people are dissatisfied with. Make people's lives
more convenient, happy, or healthy. These aren't such new ideas. If I had to
guess the ratio of a person that goes self made to holding more than $5
million in assets, I'd guess 95 to 98% old ideas with great execution, 2 to 5%
new ideas. We lose sight of that in technology because we keep hearing about
the new cool hotness, but most fortunes are built by fixing something in the
world that you're using and aren't happy about the quality of. Hence, almost
all execution, not so much having great ideas.

~~~
tjogin
Yeah, ideas are mostly worthless.

Facebook's success certainly cannot be attributed to their "idea": the online
community thing had been done thousands of times before. Just never executed
well enough.

Google's success cannot be attributed to their idea, as there were numerous
search engines before them. Execution is what propelled them to the forefront.
Their search engine actually showed good results.

Amazon. They sell books. Not the most novel idea out there. They just did it
better than anyone else. Zappos. They sell shoes.

For all the time people spend comparing their startups to the biggest players,
it's quite odd that so few realize that it's not about the idea. It's about
the execution.

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cojadate
An idea can be completely unoriginal and still be a good idea – an idea is
still good even after it's been copied. So the article's contention that there
can be no success without both good execution and a good idea is completely
accurate. Selling books is a good idea, selling dead leaves isn't.

Also, I think you oversimplify the ideas of Amazon, Google, Zappo and
Facebook. I would argue that Amazon's idea was more "selling a massive range
of books online via a simple interface" not just "selling books". And there
are many variations of the "online community thing". The idea for Facebook
wasn't the same as the idea for Friends Reunited and it's easy to see how that
helped one to prosper and the other to fail.

~~~
tjogin
Sure, but even with your definitions of their ideas, they're not super-unique,
certainly their ideas aren't the most valuable thing in the mix.

To illustrate my point; there was no need for either of the mentioned
successful startups to keep their "idea" a secret until launch, in fear of
someone "stealing" it.

What I mean is that had someone heard of their "idea" before launch, it would
have changed nothing. It's all about the execution.

Conversely, many would-be startup founders I've talked to seem to think that
their idea is _the most valuable thing they have_. That they need to keep
their super-unique idea under wraps, for fear of it getting out and someone
else doing it instead.

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InclinedPlane
Good ideas can often be subtle. Boiled down to utter simplicity the difference
between facebook and myspace may seem to be tiny. But that's not the case.
Another term for subtlety may be "precision". The difference between facebook
and some other seemingly similar site may seem subtle but by the same token it
may actually be a difference in precision, with facebook hitting a tiny target
(a correct mix of complexly interacting features and design) that others
missed.

You see this sort of importance of precision/subtlety everywhere. The
difference between the best selling automobile and the 20th best selling
automobile in the same class is often a long list of subtle, yet important
differences. Also, what may seem like subtle, some might say inconsequential,
differences on casual inspection may in fact be jarring, fundamentally
important distinctions. The addition of 1 tablespoon of salt to a bowl of soup
instead of merely a pinch changes the flavor dramatically, even though in
either case the salt is only just a tiny, tiny fraction of the ingredients.

~~~
tjogin
Those subtle differences are _execution_. The idea is to build a better car.

~~~
cojadate
In the end we come down to an unfruitful debate on the distinction between
'idea' and 'execution'. If you've got every last detail for a website planned
out in your head but nothing implemented, that's still an idea, not execution.

In my opinion it goes like this:

* A bad idea is less than worthless

* Unoriginal good ideas are worthless

* Original but vague good ideas are worth very little

* Original and detailed good ideas are worth a lot, but still useless without fantastic excecution too

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yardie
As a developer I think I'm quick to shoot down ideas faster than most.
Usually, we enjoy pragmatic thinking and GTD attitude towards problems. I
didn't really think about ideas (not problem ideas, ideas ideas) until a met
an artist on a train. We were talking and she asked me what I thought about a
project she had envisioned. Naturally, I pointed out all the technical and
financial pitfalls of her idea. This seemed to shut her down.

My wife, instead, asked me what it would take to do it and, quite naturally, I
was able to list all the equipment and technical skills needed for such a
project. It wasn't until I finished that I realized that the project was
reasonable and doable.

It's very easy to dismiss ideas, even good ones. Dumb ideas can be as good as
brilliant ones if executed right

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rooshdi
Isn't "execution" the implementation of a combination of varying "ideas"? If
not, then I guess most services wouldn't have competitive advantages and
Facebook wouldn't be what it is today.

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araneae
Actually, there are such stupid arguments in biology, namely nature versus
nurture. Of course, most biologists are over that now, but the public
certainly isn't.

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DanielBMarkham
The problem here is that the author is arguing with himself.

Execution means having lots of ideas and modifying them as conditions change
and you learn more.

We talk about ideas vs. execution because big exciting ideas are all over the
place (I know the author doesn't agree but from experience I've seen and heard
a lot of really great ideas). What's missing is all the little ideas that come
from those big ideas. Lots of folks have some vague, big-pictured idea. Not
many people have the three thousand little ideas that support the big one.
Execution means finding all those little ideas and testing them to see which
ones work.

If I remember correctly, FaceBook didn't really take off until the FriendFeed
feature was added. Once folks started getting real-time updates of their
friends, it became addictive. Sure the big idea was there and succeeding, but
it's those little tweaks that end up doing the trick.

That's just my opinion, of course. Your mileage may vary. It's definitely a
discussion worth having.

~~~
nl
> FaceBook didn't really take off until the FriendFeed feature was added

Well that isn't quite true, but the news feed was an important innovation,
which did add a lot of momentum. Facebook actually had that before FriendFeed
came along (which everyone seems to forget when they accuse Facebook of
copying FriendFeed's features)

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kelnos
I feel like the author basically contradicts himself in the end. He talks
about how there were plenty of "face books" at various colleges and how this
idea is certainly not new. So why did Zuckerberg's Facebook get so big and
popular wen the others are small and obscure? Execution, maybe?

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ia
this guy must be a glutton for punishment to submit this here. i've lost count
of the number of times this subject has come up and been quickly _put down_.
each time, the author comes off looking worse than the last time.

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CGamesPlay
Thank you or abridging "sex" from the title. It's appreciated.

