Paul Buchheit: Ideas vs Judgment and Execution: Climbing the Mountain | Hacker News Reader

Paul Buchheit: Ideas vs Judgment and Execution: Climbing the Mountain

paulbuchheit.blogspot.com

114 pointspaul42 comments

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.

I feel strongly the same way. That's why I think what you need for a startup is a kernel of idea generation. This kernel is in itself initially an idea, but the key function it has is to inspire quality after-ideas. I tend to have an initial idea, analyze it, and try to find some insight in it. If it works this insight, or way of looking at things, becomes an idea catalyst.

This is why his point about judgment is right on. The challenge is not having good ideas but knowing which of your ideas are good.

When Paul Graham says that all that what they care about is having good people, there's an underlying assumption that good people won't pursue lousy ideas.

Ideas can't be sold, but judgment of what is a good idea can be profitable -- that's one of the things that venture capitalists do.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?)

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?

I see the same thing in ideas for research papers. I have lots of ideas I think are great, the trouble is it takes a year to do the grunt work to prove my idea right, and then even if it's right it may not be marketable to my scholarly community. So, it becomes obvious really quickly that it's better to find someone who's succeeded in the market (here has a good CV) and either work on their ideas or get them to certify yours and guide you through the work.

Maybe I would change Paul's analogy around a bit and imagine a beach full of pyrite and gold sand. Certainly you wouldn't say sand is worthless; some of it is gold. A random shovel full probably is approximately worthless though, to get real value you'd need a talented prospector.

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...

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

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.

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 :-)

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 :)

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

"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!

Sometimes one side is just plainly wrong.

The debate about evolution versus Intelligent design is an example.

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.

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.

Colbert: Does Jon Stewart orally pleasure teamsters for pocket change?

Jon: Uhhh, no.

Colbert: Well, you are certainly entitled to that opinion, but I can assemble an impressive panel who say you do. I guess the truth lies somewhere in between.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

is air worthless, or _price_less?

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

Four of the five are qualities of the team.

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).

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.

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.

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.

Nice metaphor: mountain climbing - startups.

Wish it were my idea.

"apparently the gold flows intermittently in this analogy"

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

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

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