Former stealth moder here. I really liked your essay and I appreciate that someone is pushing back against the 'ideas are cheap' meme. I think you were really

Former stealth moder here. I really liked your essay and I appreciate that someone is pushing back against the 'ideas are cheap' meme. I think you were really smart to make the first item be that an idea which you cannot execute is a bad idea for a startup. However, I think that your essay left out one really important thing: what people mean when they say 'idea'. It's helpful to unwrap what we mean when we say 'idea' so that we can distinguish between the two different cases of value: 'it's only an idea' vs. 'an idea that can change the world'. I think that the disconnect between the 'ideas are cheap' crowd and the 'ideas are valuable' crowd is that they don't mean exactly the same thing when they say 'idea'. And knowing the difference not only means that you can speak someone else's language, it also means that you can see how to add value to your ideas. Whether it is a business idea, product idea, or invention idea, the level of vagueness affects how much value it has. There is a difference between 1) an idea for a product, 2) an idea for the basis of how it works, and 3) a complete set of code or blueprints for making one. 'Execution' is largely what we call going from step 2 to 3, but both step 1 and step 2 get called ideas. Even step 2.5, where something is not fully executed but the details have been worked out, gets called an idea. I'd love to see more about how adding specificity adds value, but only if it is correct. Taking a great idea (say, the diesel engine) and making a poor implementation of it (building a really crappy diesel engine) doesn't take value away from the earlier steps of the idea (someone else can build a better one). So, ideas start with little value, but get more value as more correct specificity is added.