Working at a startup helmed by a "brilliant" man as mentioned in the article, I wholeheartedly agree. So much hand waving. So little execution. One month, we were doing one thing that "had to be in the app". Another month, something else. Neither would get the actual attention that needed for them to be implemented properly, and nothing of value was produced.
Society places too much importance on the buds of ideas. True, an idea can change the world. But what gets lost in the shuffle is the fact that what truly matters is in those ideas being executed and turned into something tangible.
The charismatic idea men are a dime a dozen. I'm sure everyone here has worked with some hand-waving, smooth talking salesman who wows investors, then fail hard at meeting promises. It's those who can execute that are truly transformative.
I find that the "idea" person must really find a partner who can edit and curate his ideas. At the same time the partner who is doing the editing has to have enough social skill to know how to keep an "idea person" from getting anxious and changing course all the time.
If both people have respect and trust for each other I think it's one of the strongest partnerships you can have. If one bullies the other around though, then that's when it usually breaks down.
Exactly my experience. I have the luck to work with what are basically geniuses, guys that were hacking at 12. Two decades later they are unstoppable.
Brilliant people have the productivity of 5 normal coders, but you have to constantly rotate among projects, or they will get bored incredibly rapidly. Writing the final reports is torture to them.
Incidentally (And I welcome negative points here) a great indicator of the capacity to focus for a long time on boring things and finish, should be college. It's no wonder many hacker geniuses can't finish it.
I hear you. I once worked at a company that went down the tubes because they gave an idea guy free rein and he was depending on underwear gnomes. It was a profitable $40m company when I arrived, but I saw the writing on the wall and left after three years. Two years later one of its competitors bought it for a song.
Society places too much importance on the buds of ideas. True, an idea can change the world. But what gets lost in the shuffle is the fact that what truly matters is in those ideas being executed and turned into something tangible.
The charismatic idea men are a dime a dozen. I'm sure everyone here has worked with some hand-waving, smooth talking salesman who wows investors, then fail hard at meeting promises. It's those who can execute that are truly transformative.