Dilbert: Startup idea

Let's hope you buy the right engineers.

This. Downplaying the importance of ideas is a popular sentiment and is true to a large extent but there is a devilish side to it. Saying that execution is all that matters feels good to a professional engineer because this is what he does all day and what he is good at. Sadly, unused idea-generation skills slowly deteriorate (arguably this process begins in school when you are handed your first homework). So it is important to exercise these skills now and then by generating some ideas (however small) which are your own and not handed to you by some "idea guy"! (and of course execute them to the point when they come into contact with reality)

But a company willing to change as they see the need is likely to have at least some success. A willingness to change is worth half a dozen ideas.

Every startup starts off as a bad idea. That's kinda the point of the lean process: you've got to start somewhere but you have no idea what your customers actually want. So you do a whole bunch of experiments to find out what they do want.

Doing the experiments takes engineers and money, which are important. The idea you start with is not. This is why investors invest in teams not ideas.

Idea's are worth a nickel. Execution is worth millions.

(I can't remember who originally said that, but Ive remembered it. Might have been Spolsky?)