Consider the startup we all love to hate, Groupon. Groupon was founded solely on a Big Idea. I think thats why it got so much hate in the beginning, because all it took was that fucking idea and any one of us could have had it.
Without Lightbank to hyper-fuel its growth, one of the million knockoffs run by a larger company would have pushed to the fore and destroyed them. Every bit of stealth was essential.
They took the expertise they had building that platform - for years - and then applied it to coupons.
There have been a zillion iterations on coupon sites. Some of them probably came close to Groupon's basic model. The idea was not really the main thing.
headline aside, nice article, like "collaboration is the winning strategy — fear is the innovation-killer"
Collaboration is the winning strategy? For whom?
The writer forgot to add, "for the strongest player." For the weaker player, collaboration usually means assimilation. This is not always bad, but it must be addressed plainly.
Ideas are like any other valuable thing: a rare few are amazing, some are good, most are meh, and some are wtf? For those people that are good at idea generation, being tacit can be one useful means to getting paid on delivery.