So, yet again we have someone saying that ideas are plentiful, easy, worthless, and don't "count": Or,

"It is the manner in which ideas are executed that counts."

"Ideas don’t make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does."

Somehow I remember seeing this nonsense before:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2287728

So, since ideas don't "count", we should shut down the USPTO and tell the US DoD to quit classifying ideas for, say, stealth, laser gyroscopes for inertial navigation, drag-free satellites for better GPS, a lot in sonar, radar, and spread spectrum, etc. And we should tell the lawyers that when someone steals a trade secret idea they have stolen nothing that "counts".

Moreover, we should shut down the funding for NSF and NIH for more ideas.

And we should shut down the peer-reviewed journals of original research since they publish just ideas with usually nothing on "execution".

In particular, we should do away with the Ph.D. dissertation since its usual role now is to present an idea that is "an original contribution to knowledge worthy of publication" and where the usual criteria for publication are "new, correct, and significant" which must all be empty since ideas don't "count".

We should shutdown the Nobel prizes since they are given just for ideas that don't "count".

For Newton's second law F = ma, we should quit teaching that because it is just an idea which doesn't "count". Similarly for Einstein's equivalence of mass and energy in E = mc^2 -- doesn't "count".

For the Craig Venter idea of chopping up DNA, sequencing the pieces, and reassembling the pieces in a computer, an idea that got the sequencing of DNA done years faster, we should have ignored that.

For the idea of Reed-Solomon error correcting codes crucial to letting CDs work, it doesn't "count" either.

For public key cryptosystems, their role in Kerberos and authentication and in electronic finance, we should forget about that, too, since they are just ideas which don't "count".

People should quit looking for an idea to settle the question P versus NP since the idea, even if found, would not "count".

And the idea of using tungsten in a glass with high vacuum as an incandescent electric light would not "count". The tungsten idea came from the English chemist Swan, and the needed much better vacuum pump came from Germany(?). Then Edison could give up on baking hair to make carbon filaments and get on with electric lighting.

But, more is claimed: Apparently all ideas are equivalent, that is. don't "count:, and only execution counts. So, might as well start with a bad idea.

If start with a bad idea, then, yes, execution is about all that will "count". Just what is it about bad ideas the author likes so much?

This article is just another attempt of many to run down ideas by apparently someone with less than a weak little hollow hint of a tiny clue about what an 'idea' really is and what a good idea is how valuable it can be.

In fact, with a good idea, execution is routine and the idea was likely difficult to find and is about all that does "count".

There can be reasons for running down good ideas:

(1) They can be new and disrupt things.

(2) They tend to be difficult to find.

(3) In school in, say, math and physics, being able to find the good ideas needed to work the problems can be difficult and hurt the feelings of people who fail to find such ideas.

(4) In venture capital, it might be a good initial negotiating position to claim that "Ideas are easy. Execution is everything." and "Ideas are plentiful." in order to tell an entrepreneur with a good idea that what he has is easy and plentiful and nothing.

E.g., one of the most important steps forward in civilization, technology, and economic productivity was Euclid's 'Elements' on plane geometry, especially the Pythagorean theorem, e.g., crucial for trigonometry, Fourier theory, Nyquist sampling, JPGs, MPEGs, and music CDs! But, for anything so important we'd want a solid proof. All that takes is a good idea. So maybe the author would like to find such a proof, alone, without books, Google, or input from others.