The Myth of Worthless Ideas

or why we need to stop saying, "Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything."

In the entrepreneurial world, there's a phrase we hear so often it feels like gospel: Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything. It sounds pragmatic, even wise—a tribute to relentless effort, hustle, and the actual work of building something real. But the more I hear it, the more I think we've let it mislead us.

I teach and mentor in entrepreneurship programs at MIT, Harvard Launch Lab, IE Business School, and work a lot with private founders. The people I work with know my preferences and my bias toward action. As someone whose career has always revolved around entrepreneurship, my life choices are defined by execution. But—and that's a big "but"—you need to make sure you execute on a good idea. Because spending years on a bad one, well…that's a bad idea 😀.

Yet, despite knowing this, I still sometimes catch myself dismissing ideas too quickly. Recently, in a mentoring session, a founder shared an idea I initially didn't understand—a hair-braiding machine. My first reaction was skepticism: Was this necessary? But as they explained its significance—how traditional braiding is culturally vital yet incredibly costly and time-consuming, often taking hours—I began to see its value. They described interviews with individuals who felt disconnected from their heritage because existing solutions were inadequate or impractical.

Suddenly, what seemed like "just another gadget" became profoundly meaningful—a tool preserving cultural identity, saving precious hours, and solving a problem I hadn't previously recognized.

Even more compelling was that this wasn't mere theory. They had working prototypes and initial patents. Here was an insightful idea combined with relentless execution.

Which leads me back to the famous phrase. Yes, execution is hard, but we can’t downplay the importance of a good idea.

Because ideas are hard. But they're a different kind of hard, as Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator, commented on Lex Fridman's tweet: "Ideas are easy, execution is hard." James Altucher, another well-known entrepreneur, added a clarifying thought: "Good ideas are not easy, and execution is just a subset of ideas."

And that's the real issue—this notion that ideas are easy, that good ones are abundant, waiting to be plucked like ripe fruit. The problem with this thinking is that it's wrong.

But how wrong? Empirically, scientifically wrong.

The Science of Scarcity

In their influential 2020 paper "Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?", Nicholas Bloom and colleagues documented a startling decline in research productivity across multiple sectors, notably technology. One finding, for example, showed that maintaining Moore's Law—the exponential improvement in computer chips—now requires 18 times more researchers than it did in the early 1970s. Groundbreaking ideas are becoming increasingly scarce, and thus more valuable, not less.

Ideas are hard. And innovation, fundamentally, remains an idea-driven endeavor.

Take TikTok.

The story of TikTok isn't one of overnight viral success but of an idea that, at first, seemed almost too simple to be revolutionary. Early investors in TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, recall meeting the founder and hearing a strikingly straightforward premise:

What if every piece of content uploaded was guaranteed to be seen by at least one person?

It was a radical departure from the status quo. Social media at the time was built on networks—followers, connections, personal reach. If you posted on Instagram, your content was only visible to those who followed you. The race wasn't necessarily for engaging content but for more followers.

But TikTok flipped that on its head. Content wouldn't be constrained by your personal audience. Instead, it would be algorithmically distributed based on engagement—first shown to a handful of users, then expanding exponentially if people responded well.

A simple idea? Maybe. But not an easy one. It required rethinking fundamental assumptions about social platforms, virality, and attention economics. And it became the foundation for an app that reshaped global media consumption.

Thomas Laffont, Co-Founder of Coatue Management and one of TikTok's first investors, made a striking observation about Silicon Valley:

"It just goes to show how we're in an idea business, and when you have a truly revolutionary idea, it can get really big."

Notice what he didn’t say?
"We are an execution business."

Without even having a chat with Laffont, I have a good sense of what he meant—execution is critically important, but without a unique idea, there’s nothing to execute in the first place.

Why is it hard?

The answer to the question of why good ideas are so elusive might be found in our contemporary life. In 2005, economist Benjamin Jones published the paper "The Burden of Knowledge and the 'Death of the Renaissance Man,'", arguing something counterintuitive yet deeply relevant: innovation is getting harder precisely because of increasing specialization. As knowledge expands, we must narrow our expertise just to keep pace, losing the broad, integrative thinking that characterized great innovators like Leonardo da Vinci or Benjamin Franklin.

Jones demonstrated that specialization had increased by about 6% per decade, resulting in fewer generalist innovators capable of bridging distinct fields. In response, collaboration among highly specialized experts surged by 17% per decade. As human knowledge expands, synthesizing it into novel ideas becomes progressively challenging (Given these challenges posed by growing specialization, perhaps the solution lies in intentionally fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration. This belief underpins The Artian, my company’s core philosophy at the intersection of art, technology, and science—encouraging artists and technologists to collaborate, think differently, and break through the boundaries imposed by narrow expertise).

There might be a reason to hope. Advances in AI might revolutionize how we generate and explore ideas, potentially alleviating this "burden of knowledge." Yet, as of now, complexity remains—and the data makes it clear: ideas, especially revolutionary ones, are anything but easy.

Given these challenges, perhaps we should seek inspiration from fields naturally attuned to the longevity and value of ideas—like art.

The Longevity of Ideas

One of my favorite art movements is conceptual art, precisely because it thrives on unique thinking. Artist Sol LeWitt understood something profound: Objects are perishable. Ideas need not be.

Sol LeWitt. Fair use, Wikipedia

LeWitt is famous for his wall drawings, existing not as physical objects but as sets of instructions executed by anyone with the necessary skills. When an exhibition ends, the physical manifestation disappears, yet the idea remains intact—ready to be realized again elsewhere. In his words,

"The idea becomes a machine that makes art."

The same holds true in business. If we take a quick look back to 1982, when fewer than 5% of US households owned a computer, the idea of "a computer for the rest of us" as conceptualized by Steve Jobs seemed radical. The technology didn't even exist to fully realize his vision. Danny Hillis, a well-known inventor who worked with Jobs, noted that despite technical missteps, Jobs consistently got the core idea—the vision—right.

To make "a computer for the rest of us" a reality, it needed to be friendly. That was Jobs’ instruction to his team: Make a friendly computer. But what did friendly even mean? It was vague, even strange at the time. Yet that simple, powerful idea—accessibility, intuitiveness, human-centered design—became the guiding principle that shaped Apple’s entire philosophy.

From that one radical idea, an entire industry—and ultimately, human behavior—was reshaped.

Ideas Are Not Cheap

Execution matters. No one disputes that. But treating ideas as trivial is a mistake. Truly great ideas—the ones that challenge how things work—aren't easy to find. They're not just lying around, waiting to be claimed. They require deep insight, unconventional thinking, and often the willingness to see something others dismiss.

Maybe the real problem isn't that ideas are worthless. Maybe it's that we've gotten too good at ignoring them.

Just like LeWitt’s instructions enabled endless artistic creation, “machines that create art,” Jobs’s simple yet revolutionary idea—that technology should be friendly—became the machine powering decades of groundbreaking products, from Macintosh computers and laptops to the iPhone and iPad. One powerful idea set in motion decades of innovation.

In entrepreneurship, we don't have to choose between ideas and execution—we must understand the interplay of both. Often, what starts as a simple, crazy idea—dismissed, underestimated, ignored—becomes the machine that builds the next innovation.

In our rush to glorify execution, we've created a culture that sometimes diminishes the very thing that gives execution its purpose—the idea itself. The real innovation challenge isn't choosing between ideas and execution—it's creating the conditions where extraordinary ideas can emerge, be recognized, and then—yes—be executed with relentless precision.

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Final Thoughts

• Want to bring fresh thinking to your ideation process? Let’s talk. I help teams foster innovation, collaborate with creatives, and build cultures where curiosity thrives. Reach out, and let’s make it happen.

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• I’d love to hear from you—whether it’s your thoughts, suggestions, critiques, or even cool stories and ideas. Feel free to drop me a note at nir [at] theartian.com, leave a comment, or send me a message.

  Thanks

  Nir

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