This is one of his essays I vehemently disagree with, and think has hurt Silicon Valley. The idea that ideas and idea people are worthless has had a cascading effect of putting non idea people in idea people seats, or locking out a class of people from participating unless they have some other engineering or marketing or leadership skill. Apple would never have become without Steve Jobs being able to see what was and wasn’t a good idea.
An idea person doesn’t just have one good idea, and maybe one idea alone is worthless. Good ideas include good taste for scope, what is and isn’t needed for success.
Having an idea and handing it off to a startup is very different from having an idea and supervising it, keeping it on the rails. It’s almost crazy to me that an idea is worthless, but an entire startup without an idea is seen as potential.
As far as the AI floodgates, the world changed almost overnight, and we are just going to have to adapt to everyone having a calculator in their pocket, and that being good at using it is a more important skill than arithmetic. I’m not sure I’ve seen a technology adaption go from 0 to whatever percent we are at quite like this. It’s barrier to entry is so low, free to use, easy to use, easy to plug into old workflows, and somewhat undetectable by those not in the know. It would be wise to accept this new reality and start valuing prompt and editing skills instead of dismissing what part people “aren’t doing on their own.”