Ideas are just a multiplier of execution (2005)
sive.rs
sive.rs
As per the premise, wouldn't you want to quickly vet out the idea to see if it's > 0 or your hurdle rate multiplier? If idea is Awful (-1), no level of execution is going to result in a desirable outcome.
This premise shows exactly why idea vetting is important.
Paul Graham does not have an idea, and he is a grand master expert in the field.
The best ideas from YC backed companies looked awful for Paul Graham, he just trusted the people behind them.
this research claims:
> people who have achieved a high level of business expertise have a deep understanding of the following three core areas: (1) factors involved in effective operations, (2) forces influencing the market, and (3) those driving business finance and economic climates
these information sources are, in a sense, 'ideas', but they are discovered through execution
softer version of this claim is that 'ideas' come from market research, and market research is not that different from execution
The best idea imaginable could theoretically be put into production with negligible execution. The ability to easily execute an idea is one intrinsic component of that idea.
Adding some practicality constraints to blue-sky sessions might sound counterintuitive, but it can also help ensure our ideas remain in the realm of "remotely feasible".
But anyways, the old adage sounds good I guess.
IMO, da Vinci would not be as well known today if he had not executed magnificently. Lots of people come up with random ideas. Few actually do anything with them.
He was a master painter that worked all the time.
Most engineering ideas of Da Vinci were shit precisely because he never executed them. But he was a great illustrator.
Hey, at least that's like $2/year or something.
IMHO A great, original idea, with adequate execution, is far, far, more valuable than a ho-hum idea executed perfectly. Just like a sputtering unreliable automobile is far more valuable than the finest horse and carriage, because it embodies future potential.
Of course VC's don't want to pay for great ideas, and want you to believe that all the value is in the execution that they enable.
Most companies scale to the point where they pay tons of money to do local optimizations to squeeze out the last 20% of the juice. The first 80% is usually driven by tailwind around the idea.
Do you mean to tell me that Juicero wasn't a great idea?
It was an outright scam.
It launched in 1995, 26 years ago.
AirBnB launched in 2008, 13 years ago.
If anything AirBnB shows the power of execution, not the power of an idea.
No, the innovative part was that the German Commander, Gerd von Rundstedt, was able to maneuver 7 Panzer divisions (aka: 2000 tanks) through the Ardennes Forest in just 3 days.
This was considered an impossible feat. The Ardennes Forest is heavily wooded and hilly terrain... with 200-meter cliffs littering the area, in a time before GPS-navigation. However, Mr. Rundstedt was a veteran of WWI and was extremely familiar with the forest, and served as an impressive guide. (EDIT: I had some details here but I double-checked and apparently was a bit confused earlier)
The French counter-attack thought they had 2 weeks to prepare. They were caught with their pants down as 2000 tanks streamed out of the forest before they could mount their planned defense.
Once The German army group secured the Ardennes Forest, the rest of the ~4-million men of the German Army poured through the Forest unhampered into France.
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The fact of the matter is: details matter. Hitler wasn't the smart one here, it was Rundstedt.
Very likely, the German scouting parties were mapping out the region and preparing long before the order was given. Little details that will never really be revealed in any history book, but these are the details that mattered in the Battle of France 1940.
It doesn't matter what "idea" you gave Rundstedt, he will get the job done. He's the brilliant mind that allowed Poland, Belgium, France, and the southern-push of Soviet Union to be taken so quickly.
Rundstedt lost his position as Field Marshal because he began advocating for peace after the Allied landings (Famously quoted as: "Make peace you fools! What else can you do?"). Still, he was reinstated in time for the Battle of the Bulge, and boy-oh-boy, was that a surprise to the Allies.
I mean, Rundstedt couldn't squeeze a strategic victory from that hopeless situation of 1944/1945 (and was long an advocate of peace before then). But the fact that he grabbed a temporary tactical victory in those conditions just proves how incredible he was as a commander (well, that... and everything else he did in WW2).
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Blitzkreig, as a strategy, is largely "Lets drive really fast in airplanes, cars and tanks, and communicate by radio to stay coordinated on the front".
It was the obvious strategy given the new technological advancements at the time. It should be compared/contrasted with the French strategy (which was the use of heavier tanks that marched roughly the same speed as infantry... largely because the French haven't adopted the Radio yet)... but the Blitzkreig style had its flaws.
French tanks had bigger guns and heavier armor: the early Panzers were light and fast but utterly outgunned. It almost certainly only worked because of Rundstedt's brilliance. If the French were given an extra few more days to pull their heavy tanks to Sedan (lets say The Battle of Sedan was just a few days later than historical), the French probably could have held off the German assault entirely.
The Meuse is a huge river, it would have been very difficult for the Germans to cross if French heavy-armor was actually guarding that river. Indeed, the Germans were only successful because the bombing campaign vs the bridges of the Meuse were stopped by the Luftwaffe. And also because French troops panicked and retreated off of some misinformation.
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That's a lot of details to get right: moving through mountainous + forested region (without roads!!) with speed. Defending key bridges using ground and air forces. A feint attack to the north to draw away French forces from this area. There was also some luck and awful moves by the French commanders in the area.
Then adequately defending against the heavy-French armor counter-attack with only light tanks (tanks with 1/2 the armor and 1/4th the cannon size), to give time for your slower troops to cross the Ardenes and reinforce the position. The German tanks had to draw and trap the French heavy-armor against the larger anti-tank guns.
The "standard" 37mm cannons on the Panzers and of typical infantry were literally bouncing off of French armor, dealing no effective damage. In contrast, the French Char B1, while slow, had a 75 mm gun that obliterated the German armor.
EDIT: The French Char B1, thanks to the "Heavy Armor" style of the French, took on 140 shells from Panzer IV and Panzer III before destroying all 13 tank opponents simultaneously. That's the strength of the French counter-attack at the Battle of Stonne.
Blitzkreig required higher-speed tanks with smaller guns and lesser armor. Really, if there were more B1s defending this area, the Germans would have been screwed.
Or put more precisely, a deep understanding(that proves to be true) ?
And that seem like something one can build a sucsessful business around.
Because "Hmmm, my light tanks and anti-tank guns can't win for some reason. Instead, lets draw their heavy tanks into traps comprised of Luftwaffe dive bombers and direct-fire from massive Artillery guns" is not an "idea" anymore.
That's Rundstedt just... winning. That's not an idea you set out ahead of time, that's just the commander on the ground making due with his resources, and the new facts on the field as they come up.
And Rundstedt consistently did this. He always made the best of his situation. It didn't matter what kind of advantages or disadvantages you gave him.
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A lesser commander given the orders to "Blitzkreig" with lighter tanks and lesser guns may have ordered a suicide charge and lost the battle. Or maybe they would have retreated in face of the French apparent invulnerability. But Rundstedt figured out a plan and executed it well, holding the area despite the apparent French advantage.
"Ideas" are largely things that you plan to do. Yes, plans and ideas are important (and the German "Blitzkreig" definitely was a good idea). But "Execution" are the things that your people do once they run into issues, or what to do when that plan fails.
IE: You only have light tanks because you're Blitzkreig focused, and the French B1 guarding the area is invulnerable to literally all of your tanks, and your Pak 36 guns you gave your infantry are basically the same caliber as the Panzers. You just lost a fight with 1x B1 vs 13x Panzers. Now what?
I agree that coming up with crazy idea was not innovation. Well... Look at Musk, he is also very driven and able to motivate people. But he also has excellent ideas that would be impossible without crazy execution.
What he DOES have is willingness to take on risk.
Developing a worthwhile EV and building out an extensive charging network is expensive, but anybody could have done it. I wouldn't even say it's a novel idea at all. Prototype EVs existed before. Elon was just the first willing to invest the money to execute on the idea and make it happen. The first to actually make a serious effort into putting an EV into production and try to sell a million of them.
Same with FSD. People have probably dreamed of self-driving cars for decades. Elon did not come up with that idea, he was just the first to invest millions of dollars to produce it.
I would argue that Elon has terrible ideas. Like the Model S Plaid using the touch screen to shift between Park/Reverse/Drive, and replacing the turning signal stalk with touch-sensitive buttons on the yoke. Oh yeah, the yoke, another terrible Musk idea.
And don't get me started on the Cybertruck. I like to think that Elon, when designing the Model S/3/X/Y, knew that people still want to drive normal looking cars, and did not try to make their cars look like some futuristic imagining of a car. But then he threw that away when making the Cybertruck, which has an extremely polarizing look. No matter how good of a truck it is, some people will not buy it simply because of its look.
The German tanks had radios.
On-the-ground realtime initiative, adaptation to circumstances, and exploitation of opportunity beat checklist-superiority.
See Col. John Boyd's F-16 advantage in transitioning between flight modes as a similar case of non-obvious advantage against an enemy aircraft which was individually faster, could turn tighter, and fligh higher. The F-16 was worse at any of those, but could switch between flight modes more quickly, and won on agility. (Or so the story I was told studying military science back in the day.)
Ok, so adjust the multipliers then. That's what a multiplier does.
A great idea with bad execution = failure
A mediocre idea with bad execution = failure
A super bad idea with bad execution = failure
However, you can take a semi bad or mediocre idea and execute the heck out of it = success.
So I would look at the success numbers. "far far more valuable" is too subjective. Using your example, I personally wouldn't get into an unreliable vehicle but a faster horse that I know for sure works.
- Geographically-limited servicing areas. Your online paper store can sell around the world. Your plumber's got to get to the house.
- Constraints on throughput. Service jobs take time. They respond poorly to capital, automation, scaling, pre-fabrication, or other efficiency techniques, all of which are already optimised. The additional input is skill, which takes time to accumulate.
- Hands-on. A plumber or roofer can't be downloaded, nor can you drop-ship your plumbing or roofing problem to a service centre in the next state or around the world. Work happens at the site itself. (This is strongly similar to but distinct from the first point.)
- Reputation. Service work is difficult to assess, and indicia of quality include years in business, word-of-mouth, and local reputation, again, factors which take time to develop.
- Limited opportunities within a given region. Because only so many professionals can be supported, the ones who do achieve a good reputation tend to crowd out competitors. It's difficult to break into a market.
These "simple ideas" all face strong bounds on scaling or wide-area provisioning. Within a local region, accumulated skill and reputation form a strong basis for a reliable business with predictable annual revenues (if some seasonal variability).
Simple ideas without the scaling constraints mentioned are far harder to break into as the competition is at a global scale. Even a strongly enthusiastic user-base (DuckDuckGo) or tech-giant backing (Bing, to repeat the example, or Google+) doesn't guarantee a sizeable market share.