I think the "idea vs execution" debate is an interesting one, but I think it often overlooks the often sizable overlap between idea and execution. It's not tha

I think the "idea vs execution" debate is an interesting one, but I think it often overlooks the often sizable overlap between idea and execution. It's not that ideas without execution are worthless, it's that ideas without execution aren't really ideas. Suppose I have an "idea" for a novel. It's about a boy whose parents were killed by an evil wizard school, and who is living with unfriendly relatives who don't like or trust magic, and who goes to a wizard school to slowly reach his potential and experience a show down with the aforementioned evil wizard. Ok, an idea, right. But have I really give you the idea behind Harry Potter? If you give this idea to two different writers and tell them to run with it, I don't think you'll get two different executions. I think you'll end up with two different ideas. The execution and the idea are so intertwined that you really can't distinguish the two. Software is often like this. I suppose sometimes there really isn't much of an idea - like when a programmer is handed a series of wireframes and told to "make it live" (or when a writer is asked to "novelize" a screen play, with absolutely no deviation from the script). Programmers do often end up in this category for hire, so I'm not dismissing the "idea vs execution" thing completely. But I do think it often misses a big part of the picture.