4 ms·

Thanks for the note - I’m going to think about this.

untilHellbanned 9y ago
Isn't just distributing the wealth more evenly?
btilly 9y ago
Here is a twist on this to think about. Careers are made or broken on whether you get to be an idea person or an implementer. If you're an idea person you get the lion's share of the credit for anything that goes right, and can always blame your failures on the implementor. Plus ideas are easier to come up with than implementations. If you're an implementor you work hard, and then don't get much of the credit. But without implementors you simply don't have a product.
- srtjstjsj 9y ago
  Can you implement your own ideas?
  - btilly 9y ago
    Sometimes. But if everyone simply does what they think best, the result does not add up to a sensible whole. Therefore there is a necessary tradeoff between doing what you think is a good idea, and doing what someone else in the organization thinks is a good idea.
- Iv 9y ago
  I think it all boils down to playing the blame game. It takes time to do so and implementing an idea takes a lot of time. Having an idea is the easiest thing ever. I can have five ideas before lunch with time to spate on blaming the people who will actually implement them for the past failures of my "great ideas with poor implementation" But engineers/implementers who get into politics have a huge advantage: they can produce proofs, especially in tech. Nothing is more scary for an executive type than an engineer who refuses to be bullied into accepting the blame.
  - KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
    But it really depends on how healthy your corporate culture is. I would say that in 90% of the companies, "technically correct" is just not good enough.
    - Iv 9y ago
      Technically correct is not enough in a sane culture either. But the business side of thing is not complicated, it is opaque. Be technically right, hunt the information that will make you correct business-wise. And you will be able to make a much stronger claim in the blame game that the guy who is just business-right.
    - btilly 9y ago
      To be fair, the first and last line of defense for most tech people is to retreat into technical detail and present an apparently irrefutable argument that nobody understands. It is impossible from the outside to tell whether this is just the tech person being defensive and they are full of BS, or whether the tech person is right. So people eventually default to assuming BS.
- enjo 9y ago
  Is any of that true? Are ideas really that easy? Also these people aren't being paid for ideas. They're being paid for vision and the ability to guide that vision through to completion. I've met FAR more competent implementers in my life than I have product owners. You seem (and others) seem to be arguing that there is some sort of market inefficiency here, but I don't see that. And I say that as an implementer.
  - graycat 9y ago
    A common remark from VCs, e.g., John Doerr at KPCB (e.g., quoted at AVC.com) is that "Ideas are easy and plentiful. Execution is hard and everything." Well, bad ideas are easy and plentiful, and then execution is hard and everything. But good ideas are hard, and then execution is routine. By an "idea" Doerr meant just some short, off-hand statement, say, at a party or over the family Sunday dinner table, some summary might tell a neighbor over a back fence. A good idea, however, may come with a stack of solid background research on the market, the problem to be solved, and a really good solution, say, the first good or a much better solution, with good barriers to entry, etc. Here's an approach: Pick a problem that so far is solved at best poorly but where the first good solution will be close to a must have for enough people and revenue per person to make a successful business. Then find a good solution. The solution might have secret sauce which was needed to solve the problem (why the problem wasn't solved 10 years ago) and that can also be a big barrier to entry. It would help a lot to exploit current, comparatively dirt cheap, computing. If you write all your own code, then likely you don't need co-founders. Venture capital won't much help because by the time you have enough for the VCs to write you a check, you will already have enough in traction that you can monetize to have enough revenue that you no longer need, want, or will accept their check, BoD, term sheet, vesting of what you already own 100% of, etc. The checkbooks of the VCs were important when a Web site startup needed to spend big bucks with Sun Micro Systems, Oracle, Cisco, etc., but those days are over. Now the prices for such things are WAY down and the checkbooks of the VCs much less important.
  - dgreensp 9y ago
    At one level, “idea person” is a misunderstanding of the founder’s role; founders must execute, all day long. It’s not just the programmmers who “implement,” either. At another level, I’ll admit that most founders I’ve worked for have excelled more at promoting their ideas, raising money, and hiring talent — top talent, no small feat! — than product ownership. In this case, the lieutenants who make the gears mesh and not jam are the heroes to me.
- mseebach 9y ago
  Careers are fraught in any organisation that systematically allows individuals to take credit/blame for team efforts. That said, I've met quite a few implementers that seem to believe that because it's their hands on the keyboard, no other activity warrants credit, all the way down to the guy who thinks that he commands "respect" (in the gang-sense) because he can shut down the Exchange server.
  - btilly 9y ago
    Can you name me an organization where individuals (particularly near the top) do not wind up with credit/blame for team efforts?
- eikenberry 9y ago
  Calling them an idea person is, I think, unfair. The idea is the simple part. It is taking this idea to market, getting people to implement it, that is not easy. I'm not saying the implementors deserve the level of credit they get, but reducing the organizers to simple 'idea person' is somewhat disingenuous.
  - gps372 9y ago
    Yep, that is the selling part right there! It is one thing to take an idea to market when you are selling for companies like IBM, Accenture, Google, etc. But when you have to sell the same idea on your own, that takes real skill and hard-work!
- sidlls 9y ago
  Competent product development is much more than "having ideas." It's not just a room full of under-educated monkeys in business suits generating random "ideas", mindlessly picking A/B test results or throwing darts at a wall. There's this caricature version of what they do that developers seem to have that just doesn't match reality. I wish my fellow developers would take some initiative to truly understand what product, sales and marketing actually do.
herewego 9y ago
These paths are not mutually exclusive, which should probably be noted in the article as well. I know many who have done some combination of them, myself included.

Isn't just distributing the wealth more evenly?

Here is a twist on this to think about. Careers are made or broken on whether you get to be an idea person or an implementer. If you're an idea person you get the lion's share of the credit for anything that goes right, and can always blame your failures on the implementor. Plus ideas are easier to come up with than implementations. If you're an implementor you work hard, and then don't get much of the credit. But without implementors you simply don't have a product.

srtjstjsj 9y ago
Can you implement your own ideas?
- btilly 9y ago
  Sometimes. But if everyone simply does what they think best, the result does not add up to a sensible whole. Therefore there is a necessary tradeoff between doing what you think is a good idea, and doing what someone else in the organization thinks is a good idea.
Iv 9y ago
I think it all boils down to playing the blame game. It takes time to do so and implementing an idea takes a lot of time. Having an idea is the easiest thing ever. I can have five ideas before lunch with time to spate on blaming the people who will actually implement them for the past failures of my "great ideas with poor implementation" But engineers/implementers who get into politics have a huge advantage: they can produce proofs, especially in tech. Nothing is more scary for an executive type than an engineer who refuses to be bullied into accepting the blame.
- KKKKkkkk1 9y ago
  But it really depends on how healthy your corporate culture is. I would say that in 90% of the companies, "technically correct" is just not good enough.
  - Iv 9y ago
    Technically correct is not enough in a sane culture either. But the business side of thing is not complicated, it is opaque. Be technically right, hunt the information that will make you correct business-wise. And you will be able to make a much stronger claim in the blame game that the guy who is just business-right.
  - btilly 9y ago
    To be fair, the first and last line of defense for most tech people is to retreat into technical detail and present an apparently irrefutable argument that nobody understands. It is impossible from the outside to tell whether this is just the tech person being defensive and they are full of BS, or whether the tech person is right. So people eventually default to assuming BS.
enjo 9y ago
Is any of that true? Are ideas really that easy? Also these people aren't being paid for ideas. They're being paid for vision and the ability to guide that vision through to completion. I've met FAR more competent implementers in my life than I have product owners. You seem (and others) seem to be arguing that there is some sort of market inefficiency here, but I don't see that. And I say that as an implementer.
- graycat 9y ago
  A common remark from VCs, e.g., John Doerr at KPCB (e.g., quoted at AVC.com) is that "Ideas are easy and plentiful. Execution is hard and everything." Well, bad ideas are easy and plentiful, and then execution is hard and everything. But good ideas are hard, and then execution is routine. By an "idea" Doerr meant just some short, off-hand statement, say, at a party or over the family Sunday dinner table, some summary might tell a neighbor over a back fence. A good idea, however, may come with a stack of solid background research on the market, the problem to be solved, and a really good solution, say, the first good or a much better solution, with good barriers to entry, etc. Here's an approach: Pick a problem that so far is solved at best poorly but where the first good solution will be close to a must have for enough people and revenue per person to make a successful business. Then find a good solution. The solution might have secret sauce which was needed to solve the problem (why the problem wasn't solved 10 years ago) and that can also be a big barrier to entry. It would help a lot to exploit current, comparatively dirt cheap, computing. If you write all your own code, then likely you don't need co-founders. Venture capital won't much help because by the time you have enough for the VCs to write you a check, you will already have enough in traction that you can monetize to have enough revenue that you no longer need, want, or will accept their check, BoD, term sheet, vesting of what you already own 100% of, etc. The checkbooks of the VCs were important when a Web site startup needed to spend big bucks with Sun Micro Systems, Oracle, Cisco, etc., but those days are over. Now the prices for such things are WAY down and the checkbooks of the VCs much less important.
- dgreensp 9y ago
  At one level, “idea person” is a misunderstanding of the founder’s role; founders must execute, all day long. It’s not just the programmmers who “implement,” either. At another level, I’ll admit that most founders I’ve worked for have excelled more at promoting their ideas, raising money, and hiring talent — top talent, no small feat! — than product ownership. In this case, the lieutenants who make the gears mesh and not jam are the heroes to me.
mseebach 9y ago
Careers are fraught in any organisation that systematically allows individuals to take credit/blame for team efforts. That said, I've met quite a few implementers that seem to believe that because it's their hands on the keyboard, no other activity warrants credit, all the way down to the guy who thinks that he commands "respect" (in the gang-sense) because he can shut down the Exchange server.
- btilly 9y ago
  Can you name me an organization where individuals (particularly near the top) do not wind up with credit/blame for team efforts?
eikenberry 9y ago
Calling them an idea person is, I think, unfair. The idea is the simple part. It is taking this idea to market, getting people to implement it, that is not easy. I'm not saying the implementors deserve the level of credit they get, but reducing the organizers to simple 'idea person' is somewhat disingenuous.
- gps372 9y ago
  Yep, that is the selling part right there! It is one thing to take an idea to market when you are selling for companies like IBM, Accenture, Google, etc. But when you have to sell the same idea on your own, that takes real skill and hard-work!
sidlls 9y ago
Competent product development is much more than "having ideas." It's not just a room full of under-educated monkeys in business suits generating random "ideas", mindlessly picking A/B test results or throwing darts at a wall. There's this caricature version of what they do that developers seem to have that just doesn't match reality. I wish my fellow developers would take some initiative to truly understand what product, sales and marketing actually do.

herewego 9y ago

These paths are not mutually exclusive, which should probably be noted in the article as well. I know many who have done some combination of them, myself included.