I guess if you view winning a Nobel Prize as a failure, then yes, you've refuted my example. I doubt more than a tiny fraction of people would consider that a failure, however.
Ideas can, in fact, have value, and that is a function of scarcity. A lot of entrepreneurs apparently misjudge this, thinking that, for example, their idea to create a social network for X (insert verb of choice) is somehow valuable in its own right. But in most cases X is so generic that it's not. The superconductor example I gave is an example where there really is a scarcity, and so there is value.
> I guess if you view winning a Nobel Prize as a failure, then yes, you've refuted my example. I doubt more than a tiny fraction of people would consider that a failure, however.
The point is that a Nobel prize, like VC funding, is not a biz success. It's an "attaboy" with some money attached. And for the VC funding, they expect biz success later.
I'm not saying that ideas have no value whatsoever, because clearly a bad idea properly executed can still be a bad idea.
What I am saying though is that there are few ideas that can be not executed and/or executed poorly and still render a success.
Of course success is variable, as you point out with regards to the Nobel Prize here. Assume somebody does execute a strategy to effectively monetize the superconductor described. As you point out that's a game changer on levels that will make the Nobel Prize seem rather small.
"Ideas don't matter, only execution does" is just a pet peeve. It's as obviously false as the notion some people have that their (totally obvious) idea is really valuable.
I like Derek Sivers formulation: ideas are a multiplier on execution. With a really amazing idea (like the formula for the first high-Tc superconductors) even run-of-the-mill execution yields big returns.
