Revenge of the Idea Guy

Hey y’all — ideas are cheap, execution is everything.

That’s the saying, right? You’ve probably heard that so often that you don’t even know who originally said it. (It’s ok, I had to look it up too — it’s legendary VC John Doerr).

But which is actually the more valuable skill for a founder to have in 2025?

Is this finally the time when the much-maligned “idea guy” finally gets his revenge on the celebrated high-output operator?

Some will say it’s sacrilegious to even seriously raise that question, but hear me out on this…

Revenge of the Idea Guy

Who Is The Idea Guy?

Put yourself in the shoes of the idea guy.

Silicon Valley startup culture has long celebrated the hustlers who ship fast and ask questions later. They learn by doing, from users. They’re bull-headed and singularly focused on a big vision.

The idea guy, on the other hand, has helped set that vision but afterwards has been sidelined, tolerated, and derided as a dreamer who doesn’t get his hands dirty.

Maybe he’s good at investor relations, but likely not at running the actual business.

One of the most famous idea guys ever, Adam Neumann, crashed and burned due to questionable… you guessed it, execution.

But now, after all this time, AI has given him a gift.

AI To The Rescue

I was catching up with a friend who runs a big SEO agency the other day and he told me that he no longer has employees.

He handles the sales calls, and then everything else is entirely automated by agents using tools like Manus, n8n, Gumloop, and Lindy. His net margins are 90%+ on a multi-million dollar subscription business.

I caught up with another friend who told me he’s quietly launching a new product every 1-2 days by vibe coding simple prototypes and finding niche audiences online to get them in front of quickly. He’ll focus on one when he feels he has a hit.

He’ll get as much information this month as he would’ve gotten in 6-12 months before.

These two examples are the lifeline the idea guy has been waiting for.

All of a sudden, execution feels like the easy part.

Maybe you had an idea guy send you the quote from idea guy legend Sam Altman where he says “you should have a very high bar for doing anything other than thinking about what to work on.”

And, in a world where products and services are easy to launch, picking the right one feels more important than ever.

Right?

Some Things Never Change

Ultimately, my friends from the examples I mentioned are able to do what they’re doing because they’re executing at a very high level.

The SEO agency can be fully automated because my friend understood the nuances of building workflows and agents.

The launcher isn’t moving as fast as he is because he has the right idea. It’s the opposite — he’s world-class at understanding how to scope an MVP for specific a ICP.

However, that doesn’t mean ideas haven’t gained value due to AI.

It’s absolutely true that AI elevates the need for the right ideas by lowering the cost of executing against an idea — your moat is no longer as wide as you think — but your startup’s actual success still hinges on how well you can rapidly prototype, automate, launch, hire, fundraise, and scale.

Even if we’re now able to use AI tools to gain more leverage faster than before, the founders who make use of them the best will still be the ones who succeed.

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