You said that you are of the camp that ‘ideas of worthless’. That strikes me as predatory.
People who are technical and don’t have creativity to come up with new ideas should be employees, not creators. People who can come up with ideas but cannot manage need managers. All those who cannot come up with any of the above should be investors.
It is a cunning trick that I observed in the past decade in the start up scene. Instinctively I don’t trust anyone who says that ‘ideas are worthless’.
Perhaps this is the reason why many start ups fail. There is no creator or domain expert. I see that in Agtech. The best Agtech companies are those who have some connection to farming. A handful of them are technical.
Even those who are technical do not work in the field. It is the uneducated non technical Joses and Marias who are immigrant labour that do all the work that needs to be automated.
They are not technical. They barely know English. But by not including those who Agtech is seeking to replace with tech and robots at the table, they set themselves up for failure.
I have a small farm and a little technical, but Ag robotics is multiple platforms. As a small farm owner who also has to keep the farm financially solvent and someone who also does manual work that needs to be replaced, I can spot right away how many of the Agtech companies will fail. And most of them will fail. The ones that will make it are those who have someone in the team with in-field experience.
It’s this non technical team that will come up with the best ideas because they know where they need help desperately. This is also why Europe will likely succeed first in Agtech than America. Because they have technical expertise as well as the idea team.
I hope those who dismiss ideas will reconsider. An idea is like a possibility. There are many ways it can fail and a narrower path to succeed. Only the person who came up with the idea will know the limitations and by excluding them, the chances of failures are multiplied.
As an aside: YC is also guilty of this dismissive attitude. This is also why most start ups will fail. Failure is not necessarily a bad thing but failed start ups are graveyard of what may have succeeded. It’s an enormous waste of space and resources. The only upside is redistribution of capital and creation of jobs. Hence even failed start ups and bad ideas that get funding is not necessary a bad thing. If we don’t have jobs, I guess there won’t be a way to employ the hordes of STEM educated young people pouring out into the world as they come of age.