I follow several “influencers” on social media, but to be honest there really isn’t a great deal of value in doing so. Part of the reason I say this is: despite the accepted concept of brevity and honesty in blog-writing, people are still way-too guarded with their opinions. Too many lame platitudes and catch phrases. Obviously nobody wants to get sued or ostracized for saying stupid crap online, but c’mon people. Put some personality in there.
Anyway, on to the bad advice. Recently a young (admittedly-millenial) CEO of a tech startup posted this repugnantly ignorant claim:
Ideas are worthless, execution is everything.
That sentence is (to borrow a quote from Jonah Goldberg) a veritable piñata of asininity (Imagine Matthew McConaughey in The Wolf of Wall Street). It’s dangerous when we don’t actually question stuff like this. To be fair, I think the dude probably just got a little comfortable with his own body odor and forgot himself for a minute. Not that I obsess and lose sleep over 6 words on the internet, but this is is so antithetical to my core values I felt like I had to say something. What would there be with no ideas? Execution should be a forgone conclusion assuming you’ve got a modicum of talent. Can you imagine dispensing this advice to young people?
FORGET YOUR IDEA, ITS WORTHLESS. EXECUTE PERFECTLY ON THIS STALE, BAD IDEA AND THE WORLD WILL BEAT A GOLD PATH TO YOUR DOOR.
This, dear reader, is why the online world can be a landfill of shitty ideas…”Me Too” products. Knock-offs. Derivatives.
Some day I’m going to build a website that will collect all of this tragic refuse as a monument for what NOT to do. Oh wait, we already have LinkedIn.