“I’ve long been fascinated by the common human illusion that ideas can be sorted into good and bad, when all experience shows this not to be the case. We could play the game all day long where I describe a simply terrible idea and then tell you about the people who got rich implementing it just right. Let’s try a few…
How about a comic strip that is literally a bunch of stick figures? It will be called XKCD and have no discernable characters. Done! It’s the most viewed comic on the Internet.
How about a movie about two gay cowboys? Done! Academy Award!
How about a comedic TV show about a Nazi concentration camp? Done! It was called Hogan’s Heroes and was a hit in its time.
How about a Broadway musical about a bunch of frickin’ cats? Done!
You’d be hard pressed to come up with an idea so bad that it couldn’t succeed with the right execution. And it would be even harder to imagine a great idea that couldn’t fail if the execution were left to morons.
Ideas are worthless. Execution is everything.”