
Building A Factory vs. Discovering A Goldmine - joeyespo
http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/building-a-factory-vs-discovering-a-goldmine
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stephengillie
I prefer to discover goldmines while building factories. That is, I believe
that taking an idea and executing on it will generate many more ideas. Take
the good ideas and pivot them into your project, if it works. Use some of that
gold in your factory.

Maybe the original idea was terrible - doesn't matter - you can just pivot out
of it if it's going nowhere, and it found you other ideas that may go
somewhere.

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pcrh
Though I like the analogy used here, I think this whole "ideas" versus
"execution" debate is rather silly.

Though obviously worthless unless executed, a truly great idea is worth a lot.
The point is that there are not that many truly great ideas around.

A valuable patent is an example of something that is a great idea. The most
valuable patent, for the anti-cholesterol drug Lipitor, generated $105 billion
in revenues.

[http://www.pellegrinoandassociates.com/most-valuable-
patent-...](http://www.pellegrinoandassociates.com/most-valuable-patent-in-
history-expires/)

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brudgers
Lipitor wasn't an idea, it was the result of research followed by intensive
development. Synthesis of an organic salt tends to be non-trivial. FDA
approval is left as an exercise for the reader.

 _Atorvastatin was first synthesized in 1985 by Bruce Roth of Parke-Davis
Warner-Lambert Company (now Pfizer). The best selling drug in pharmaceutical
history, sales of Lipitor since it was approved in 1996_

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipitor>

~~~
sp332
Even after you've developed the method of synthesis, you still have to
actually do it at scale, market it, and as you mentioned, get FDA approval.
That all counts as execution.

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programminggeek
Well there is a difference between discovering a goldmine and actually mining
it. If you discover some gold dust in a stream panning for gold, that's a nice
discovery, but if you actually can manage to dig and mine the gold out, that
will make you money, but even goldmines aren't free to build. You need
equipment, people, permits, land rights, etc.

Also, don't forget that many of the people who make money in a gold rush are
the ones selling pickaxes, shovels, and other supplies. Think Parse vs devs
building apps, who is getting rich?

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nikoc
The goldmine analogy is palpable, BUT in the case of the mine/property,
mineral-rights and land-rights are assigned to only one party. Having the
legal and exclusive right to exploit physical properties (esp. when that
property has value in the marketplace like gold would) is of course very, very
valuable. No one can encroach on your territory for fear of legal
repercussion. Aside from defensible patents, I'm not sure an "idea" can ever
be treated as a goldmine. No one can be assigned the exclusive right to
exploit an "idea". Perhaps film producers may have this right, but even in
their case, they've essentially gambled on the bankability of someone's
creative mind, and placed a bet, so they might be better thought of as the
investor, and not the "idea-holder". I think a better goldmine analogy would
be to think of a person's past performance (rather than a single idea),
hunger, execution, determination, network, and get'er done attitude as the
goldmine - one that will deliver gold more often than not with respect to the
rest of the population at large.

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PhoeniX-P
The public markets also encourage the 'discovery' of gigantic assets. I know a
number of companies in commodity-rich countries (Australia, Canada) that,
after discovering a mine, immediately go public because of this unique asset
on their balance sheet. From there, they get the $ to exploit it, create jobs,
etc. It is certainly a booming market and the demand will never stop. I don't
think it's the same game factory-building versus discovery. The question is
more environmental, economical and personal ambitions from my point of view.

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acgourley
A lot of commentary on idea vs execution misses an important point - while
some ideas have inherent value, people won't believe it until you prove it
anyway!

There are so many "fools gold" mines being proposed and pitched, until you
setup some equipment and bring out real, sparkling gold... statistically no
one will try and compete and certainly no one rational will invest.

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ThomPete
It takes great execution to come up with a good idea.

