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> talk is cheap and ideas are cheap, but people are really expensive [...] because the idea will change over time anyway. I largely agree with this sentiment i
by rguzman 14y ago
> talk is cheap and ideas are cheap, but people are really expensive [...] because the idea will change over time anyway.
I largely agree with this sentiment in general. However, all ideas are not created equal. Most successful companies seem to make 2nd order corrections and refinements to their ideas, but not change them all that much. Case in point, facebook hasn't changed that much in terms of vision and what it provides for its users since it started. Same for google, apple, airbnb, heroku, dropbox, reddit, mint, basecamp, ...
[i don't mean to say that those are the same type of success, just illustrating that what i said applies to a lot of very different types of successes]
- rhizome 14y agoI think the utility of this approach is unproven, so we'll see how successful it is. I view it completely as an code-factory type experiment.
- drumdance 14y agoThose examples are huge, beyond-your-wildest-dream successes, For every one of these there are a tons of made-me-rich pivots.
- grey-area 14y agoFacebook started as hot or not for college students Google started as a search company (now an advertising company, which offers search, phones etc) Apple started as a computer company (now a consumer electronics company) Airnb started as air beds on occupied flat floors, not renting empty flats Of course some companies have a great idea, execute, and stay true to it (perhaps like some of the others on your list like dropbox for example), and for those above you can trace their origins in the preoccupations of many of these companies today (Apple still tries to bring computing to the masses, Google still has search as its focus, and arguably makes advertising money because of good search), but often they have moved quite far from their original inspiration, and they have often made their money in unrelated areas (e.g. Apple is now making far far more from iPhones than it ever did from computers). I do think ideas and plans matter less than execution, because ideas tend to change so much when they come into contact with the real world and real users, and you can come across plenty of great ideas (or even get them for free from your users) as you create solutions and learn about a particular area.
- Tomis02 14y ago> I do think ideas and plans matter less than execution, because ideas tend to change so much when they come into contact with the real world and real users I smell a logical fallacy. The fact the ideas tend change shows that they actually matter, otherwise they would not change. If ideas didn't matter Nokia would still be selling rubber boots.
- grey-area 14y agomatter less != does not matter