Execution is a lot, but so is timing. Execution can be controlled, timing is mostly luck.
From a creative sector perspective, this claim holds a lot of merit as well. A correlative phrase I've heard is "Success is preparation meeting luck" because the sands of time are littered with well executed failures. In many fields!
Execution is everything? Then Microsoft is also copying their execution. What's wrong with that? Why going overboard and trying to troll Microsoft?
You can't copy execution. In the trenches every day decisions are made. The quality of the product that comes out deeply reflects the team that made it. You can clone an implementation relatively easily, and Microsoft has a ton of smart teams and has really upped its game recently, but Microsoft's next feature will not be the same as Slack's next feature, the cultures are just too different.
Can't copy in one day for sure, but boy you sure can. Ask zynga how they did it. Or just look at Samsung phones with latest Android. Sure there are few products like Adobe suite & stackoverflow etc which have stood the test of time, but slack is a relatively newcomer who is yet to crack into the big enterprises.
Which pairs up with the age old assumption that everyone is trying to create slack and couldn't have possibly been doing something more important with their lives than bringing IRC to the masses.
Yea, but at the same time I don't want to spend my life evangelizing chat software as revolutionizing how business is done. The business reminds me more of a lifestyle magazine than anything.