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Ideas are cheap, execution is cheaper

davekiss.com

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Re: Ideas are cheap, execution is cheaper

#2
Execution in the article is simply having faster tech operations. Execution in a startup context doesn't imply that - execution is how the business operates - strategy, operations, hiring, marketing, legal handling, product building - all of that. Has AI made that easier, yes. But not how this article is soley focusing on an important but a very less significant part of a startup operation or the success it might have. Startup (even only a tech based) is not only tech product building, its a business. And, that execution incoporates all the functions of a business, not only tech product building.

Re: Ideas are cheap, execution is cheaper

#4
This is a pretty wild claim, so I think it is fair to be critical of the examples given:

- Driftless sounds like it might be better as a claude code skill or hook

- Deploycast is an LLM summarization service

- Triage also seems like it might be more effective inside CC as a skill or hook

In other words all these projects are tooling around LLM API calls.

> What was valuable was the commitment. The grit. The planning, the technical prowess, the unwavering ability to think night and day about a product, a problem space, incessantly obsessing, unsatisfied until you had some semblance of a working solution. It took hustle, brain power, studying, iteration, failures.

That isn't going to go away. Here's another idea: a discussion tool for audio workflows. Pre-LLMs the difficult part of something like this was never code generation.

Re: Ideas are cheap, execution is cheaper

#5
post #2

Execution in the article is simply having faster tech operations. Execution in a startup context doesn't imply that - execution is how the business operates - strategy, operations, hiring, marketing, legal handling, product building - all of that. Has AI made that easier, yes. But not how this article is soley focusing on an important but a very less significant part of a startup operation or the success it might hav…

Okay but product development alone being faster is still pretty exciting.

Re: Ideas are cheap, execution is cheaper

#7

What a waste of words. If you idea is easily replicable probably it was not a good idea after all. LLMs don't change the equation.

> If you idea is easily replicable probably it was not a good idea after all.

Yes.

> LLMs don't change the equation.

No. They make more things easily replicable.

"We made this and all it took was 500 juniors working for a year" used to be a reasonable business moat of effort. Now it's not.

Re: Ideas are cheap, execution is cheaper

#8
post #4

This is a pretty wild claim, so I think it is fair to be critical of the examples given: - Driftless sounds like it might be better as a claude code skill or hook - Deploycast is an LLM summarization service - Triage also seems like it might be more effective inside CC as a skill or hook In other words all these projects are tooling around LLM API calls. > What was valuable was the commitment. The grit. The planning,…

> This is a pretty wild claim

Treat it rhetorically.

There can be no question that the cost coefficients of Ideas vs. Execution have changed, with LLMs

Re: Ideas are cheap, execution is cheaper

#9
"The ability to actually build something—to turn a napkin sketch into working software—was the thing that separated dreamers from builders. It’s what made you valuable."

There is also the matter of having ideas that are good and knowing how to make them into good software, not something that simply "technically works". LLMs are not enough to overcome this barrier, and the author's examples seem to prove the point. The "working products with test suites, documentation, and polish" that are just another batch of LLM front-ends are frankly unimpressive. Is this the best that AI can offer?

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