In my view, the point here isn't that ideas are worthless, it's that ideas are worthless without execution - this guy had an idea, and didn't act on it, and then saw a very similar idea succeed.
I think ideas are very important, but I think persistence is even more important, and I like the fact that the initial idea doesn't need to be perfect since you can pivot (yes, another increasingly overused term!), e.g. Microsoft, Paypal, Flickr.
The problem is that its intention often is misunderstood and it ends up just misleading people. It's supposed to be motivation for lazy entrepreneurs to DO something about their ideas but can be miscontrued and made to seem like any old idea, well executed, will win. Which from my limited experience so far, is just not true.
I completely agree. Though I guess it depends what you define as "well executed" if it's just executing the tech behind the idea, then it's likely you end up with something potentially technically very good but which nobody wants. If we define "well executed" as involving tech and also customer development, then I think executing a bad idea well must entail pivoting and therefore you actually could end up with a winner. What do you think?
Sidenote: Speaking of ideas, i just checked out yours, MyOnePage, i had a different idea that, strangely enough, i think could work well with it. I'll send you an email in a mo explaining it (didn't find your email add in your profile. Send me a shout at t[at]thesketch.org or reply here) i'll contact you asap. :)