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The next guy who upvotes anything starting with "Paul Graham was right" is going to get his legs broken.

Ok, not really (just saw the Sopranos on dvd last night), but let's not turn this into a dumb fan boy site.

There are tons of those already.

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I disagree with Paul Graham - but no one commented on these arguments(http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=19535)

http://juwo-works.blogspot.com/2007/05/ideas-are-worthless-wrong-ideas-can.html

That's because you're playing with semantics. Ideas are worthless because an idea can't solve a problem. It's the implementation of an idea that solves the problem.

Well, think back to the idea Einstein had when he was a 14 year old kid.

"if I can ride a motorcycle as fast as a beam of light..."

was it worthless?

Yes, it was, until he executed on it as an adult and formalized it and made it into something useful. Had the idea stayed an idea, or just been handed off to someone else who hadn't the mental capacity to do something with it, it would have remained worthless.

In short, Paul was right. Ideas are worthless. Ideas plus execution can have value.

Why fight it? Got some great ideas but no capacity to execute? Just accept it and start executing.

from my blog post: "An idea is a seed; many ideas have to be discovered and implemented along the way for it to grow up. The initial fertilisation is essential, but differentiation into organs, the "other ideas along the way" must come along."

this was the seed. even after differentiation into organs - as the Theory of Relativity, it was still an idea on paper. You cannot reasonably argue that it was worthless. Other people executed it.

Look Juwo, you're still playing with words. It's not so much that an idea is WORTHLESS (where it doesn't have any value) as it's that an idea doesn't really count for anything UNTIL it's been brought out into the real world. For all intents and purposes, Einstein's ideas were worthless until he put them down on paper.

Let me phrase this another way: what if Einstein had never written The Theory of Relativity? Would his ideas still be worth anything just sitting there in his brain?

Also, PG never wrote that ideas were "worthless". He wrote that people "overvalue ideas". This is what I mean when I say you're playing with words. Changing "overvalue ideas" to worthless frames it very differently and isn't very precise.

I am not bothered to look for his article but I am sure he used the term "ideas are worthless". Otherwise that phrase would never have independently stuck around here so long.

See here: http://paulgraham.com/ideas.html

He did write "The fact that there's no market for startup ideas suggests there's no demand. Which means, in the narrow sense of the word, that startup ideas are worthless."

What I mean when I say playing with words is that he qualified that statement with "in the narrow sense of the word." He was also referring to startup ideas in particular.

This discussion is getting to be a little ridiculous because you're splitting hairs and and missing the point entirely.

I dont read his essays any more.

No, you are missing the point.

So, now it is qualified by startup ideas? Then where did all the "ideas are worthless" phrases come from? (like this thread).

If you agree that in general, ideas have worth - some more than others - then we are on the same side. :)

"where did all the "ideas are worthless" phrases come from?"

Perhaps from other people who contracted a phrase because they understood what the context was? How'll you know unless you read the original source?

No one executed the theory of relativity.

This debate is silly.

No, but what's important is that the idea was physically incarnated in the form of writing. The act of writing is what counts.

1) the theory of relativity was executed by people who used that idea to develop nuclear weapons, satellites, GPS systems, semiconductor electronics etc.

Here are two 'proofs':

2) According to the patent office, if you can write down in sufficient detail your idea so that "a person of reasonable skill in the trade" can implement it, then you can patent it. (assuming other conditions like non-obviousness etc apply). Even if someone patents before you, you can still patent it (if you wrote it down with proof of date) and claim royalties. (example, the laser).

3) Have you read about the numerous lawsuits in the entertainment world about ideas for a TV show or book being stolen and executed? There are no prototypes to steal - just ideas, but they carry weight in court.

"if you can write down in sufficient detail your idea so that 'a person of reasonable skill in the trade' can implement it," you have in fact implemented it. Your approach is just less efficient; in most areas a whiteboard is not an effective way to be sure your design works, that you have considered all possibilities.

You are persistently ignoring all the execution that goes into nuclear weapons, GPS, etc. If you think implementing nuclear weapons was trivial in the 50s and 60s (50 years after the theory was in place), talk to israel. In fact the huge difference in times different applications have entered the market is an indicator that the theory of relativity is not the bottleneck. Something else is: the engineering constraints. Why have science fiction writers consistently anticipated new technologies? Because thinking up the idea could happen before it was practical to implement. Should those writers receive royalties for geostationary satellites or submarines?

Lots of theories go into each new application, rather than one theory spawning lots of new applications.

Not all ideas are worthless. But until you have shown there are no subtle deal-breakers (think fusion reactors) there is no reason to assume your idea has value in the current historical, social, economic context.

Valuing ideas may be right in the entertainment world. Do you want to move?

"you have in fact implemented it."

false.

"Lots of theories go into each new application, rather than one theory spawning lots of new applications."

both happen.

"But until you have shown there are no subtle deal-breakers (think fusion reactors) there is no reason to assume your idea has value in the current historical, social, economic context."

???

??? yourself. Explain your reasons for disagreement, and what you didn't understand. Reread my scifi writer example.

Should these receive royalties?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_satellite#Geostationary_Satellites (Arthur C Clarke)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine#Submarines_in_fiction_and_games (Jules Verne)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter#History (Leonardo da Vinci)

Since you didn't say ??? to it, did you understand my argument about bottlenecks?

I dont understand.

Peace.

"The act of writing is what counts"

really?

So you will agree that writing our ideas down on the YC application form made them valuable?

(which is precisely what PG is arguing against).

If something is worthless because people will not give you money for it ("make something people want"), then there is nothing inherent in ideas that makes them worthless.

It is simply the fact that most people would not pay you for ideas that make them generally not a profitable endeavor.

Precisely - the difference is between "worthless", which we instinctively know isn't true, and "won't pay money for":

http://journal.dedasys.com/articles/2007/04/26/ideas-are-worthless

In short: for practical purposes, PG is right, but wrong in his theory.

"How would a market for ideas work, in any case? How could you prevent someone from listening to a bunch of ideas and just walking away with the ones they like?" -- your blog post

Secrecy and contracts?

Which makes the transaction costs higher than the idea is probably worth. Execution is very important, and in an ideas market, there would probably also be a lot of crappy ones. So, you have to sign a bunch of NDA like contracts, risk being sued if you ever develop anything like the things you may have seen, and probably also have to wade through a lot of junk.

While it might be sort of doable, it's probably not worth it until we have a magic pill that lets you forget the last 5 minutes of your life completely and totally.

"Which makes the transaction costs higher than the idea is probably worth."

These costs could surely be lowered if there was demand for ideas in the first place.

I think this is more evidence that ideas by themselves are generally worthless.

It's evidence that the value of ideas, on aggregate, is low (which makes sense), but doesn't point to a value of 0, just lower than the transaction costs inherent in the attempt to create a market for a more or less non excludable good. Markets do best when there is sufficient information, and so a market based around secrecy and potential lawsuits isn't going to be a very good one. Look at software patents, for instance... it's not a very nice or healthy market.

see

http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=24338

do a google search on "patent trolls"

I don't think patents are legitimate.

Please tell me why you think they are if you disagree.

Here is a simple way to provide evidence of the hypothesis that ideas have value: make money off them without performing execution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitrage

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