2 ms·

idea: web search that gives the best results, fast, combined with ad space we sell time/energy cost to have that idea: minutes? execution: none revenue: 0 n

idea: web search that gives the best results, fast, combined with ad space we sell time/energy cost to have that idea: minutes? execution: none revenue: 0 now same as above but: executed in late 90's: revenue: $billions for Google executed in 2010, once Google exists: revenue: hard to say, but prob OOM's less than Google idea: i'll go work for McDonald's time cost to have idea: seconds/minutes execution: 20-40 hrs/week, no prev experience needed revenue: ~$1000/month another example: idea: cold fusion!!!!!! execution: no follow through revenue: zero VS. idea: classified ads ... but on the web!!!! execution: pretty standard, obvious, simple, blah (Craigslist) revenue: $millions? another one: automatic file syncing across machines? useful idea, not revolutionary most execution? blah DropBox execution? golden Amazon. Idea: you can buy things on the web and we'll mail them to you! Duh/blah/meh. Amazon's execution & timing: nailed it. some ideas have the potential to make more money than others, sure. but execution is way more important, and arguably timing has a bigger OOM effect as well.

michael_dorfman 16y ago
idea: web search that gives the best results, fast, combined with ad space we sell First of all, that's two ideas. Second, each of those ideas was far more precise than that-- remember that AltaVista and Lycos, for example, had very different ideas about how to "give the best results" and "sell ad space". In other words, getting from the vague wish expressed in "best results" to an actual algorithm capable of being executed is worth quite a lot. For every "Dropbox" you can name, with a "not revolutionary" idea and golden execution, I can name you a "Pets.com" with a crappy idea and golden execution that failed. I'm not by any means discounting the importance of execution (or timing), but some ideas have the potential to make more money than others is a hell of an understatement, if you ask me. We don't need to minimize the importance of ideas in order to remind people that the ideas aren't worth anything without good execution.

michael_dorfman 16y ago

idea: web search that gives the best results, fast, combined with ad space we sell First of all, that's two ideas. Second, each of those ideas was far more precise than that-- remember that AltaVista and Lycos, for example, had very different ideas about how to "give the best results" and "sell ad space". In other words, getting from the vague wish expressed in "best results" to an actual algorithm capable of being executed is worth quite a lot. For every "Dropbox" you can name, with a "not revolutionary" idea and golden execution, I can name you a "Pets.com" with a crappy idea and golden execution that failed. I'm not by any means discounting the importance of execution (or timing), but some ideas have the potential to make more money than others is a hell of an understatement, if you ask me. We don't need to minimize the importance of ideas in order to remind people that the ideas aren't worth anything without good execution.