Epistemic status: This was an original note in its raw, unedited form. I can't finish it now, as I am writing a post for the fast-approaching "Essays on Longtermism" competition. It came out not-too-shabby, so I don't feel too bad about it. But I really wish I had time to finish it. Perhaps I will at some point. 

Some entrepreneurial-type people say “ideas are shit”, because execution is what really matters. But the truth is, not all ideas are equally good. Ideas are different and some dramatically different. Most ideas are average, but some are really good and some are really really really really good and there are like a few levels above that. 

So it’s not just all about execution even though it’s true execution matters an incredible amount. Yes, a pretty good idea executed incredibly well beats out the best idea in the world executed extremely poorly. BUT, Amazon is a better idea than Uber, and Uber is a better idea than Groupon. No matter how well you execute on Groupon it’s probably not gonna be as good as Uber, no matter how well you execute on Uber it’s probably not gonna well as as good as Amazon. 

It’s not just about how simple or complex an idea is, some complex ideas are terrible and some simple ideas are extremely good, and vice versa. What I’m saying is that if you think of one idea, on average it’s going to be average. If you think of 100 ideas and pick out the best one as effectively as you can, You might get a quite good idea. If you think of 1 million ideas and pick out the best one you’ll probably get an extremely good idea and if you pick out the best idea out of billions or trillions of ideas you’ll probably get one of the best ideas you can find. 

It’s possible you could become a A millionaire on a mediocre idea, a billionaire on a good idea, but if you want to become a trillionaire, you probably have to have one of the best ideas that has ever been effectively put into practice.

Everybody has a lot of ideas in their own life, most of those ideas are pretty average, a few of them are good, a very few of them are extremely good, and a tiny number of them are life transforming. You can probably think of some of those ideas in your life that have completely changed your trajectory and made you a better person different than you otherwise would have ever been. The right piece of advice, the right learning experience, the right insight at the right time can totally change a person, sometimes in extremely good ways. Not every idea can do that, but once in a while, you are coming across an idea that does just this. 

So I think people who say “ideas are shit“ just don’t have very many good ideas, and maybe they don’t have enough ideas at all. The problem is, everyone thinks they have good ideas, and everyone has some good ideas, but to have some of the best ideas in the world is actually pretty damn hard, and there aren’t very many people who have thought of the best ideas in the world. 

It’s not common to be a top-notch ideas-person, it’s actually an extremely, extremely rare trait, similar to being a top-notch entrepreneur or top-notch CEO. There may be some correlation but it’s not necessarily a big one, some of the people who have the best ideas in the world aren’t that good at executing, and some of the people who are best at executing in the world don’t have that good of ideas. 

Everyone thinks they have good ideas, but the fact Is most people have average ideas and when people have bad ideas it’s a lot of work and not rewarding to try to debate them, and the person gets very attached to their ideas and defensive when you try to disprove them and so most people go on thinking their ideas are great even when they’re not, because no one wants to do the thankless work of antagonizing them and wasting their own time and energy debunking them, and besides if they are superb at executing they can make mediocre ideas seem like they were actually pretty good.. 

But you can learn to be better at generating good ideas, and just as importantly you can get good at throwing out bad ideas. If you have 1 million ideas and try to execute every single one of them, it doesn’t matter that one or two of the ideas are extremely good, you’re not going to succeed at even the mediocre ideas. 

But if you can get rid of all the ideas except The absolute best ones that transform your life and transform the world, you can have a really big impact, I think it’s really important to learn to get good at generating good ideas and learning to sift through and pick out the gold, develop it, refine it, develop it into something extremely powerful and actionable with a step-wise map and plan, and integrate it into yourself or the world

Note to self:

I should add some parts about how I do this and processes that you could use to do this for an individual or an organization, basically two separate posts in one, or just separate posts “ how to find, develop, and implement the best ideas in the world” or something catchy, feels like that could be more impactful. 

This would also be a good thing to research in detail, again this is one reason for studying Charity Entrepreneurship in profound detail, could also read Holden Karnofsky stuff again, and other posts in the community about how to do research effectively 

Also, note that ideas here could be defined very broadly, you can also do this with decisions, finding people or things in the world you like, figuring out what you want to say in a given moment or who you want to be as a person on a micro and macro scale, what values you want to hold, etc., etc., etc., in many areas of life you can find what is really important and focus on that, and I think doing this can lead to really, really good results.

 The forum is the main place that I publish my content. If you want to get my second post when I publish it, feel free to subscribe. I am also designing a Charity Entrepreneurship-style Better Futures Incubator, will be posting about this soon as well. 

Also, to get a discussion going, I'd love to hear what your absolute very best idea you've ever had is, and/or the best idea you've ever heard? Or if you really want to get carried away, your best three ideas? I would love for the comments section to be a huge public good of all of the best ideas that could benefit anyone who reads them. Maybe if your idea is long, post a short summary of it at the beginning so we can efficiently evaluate it. 

I am planning to make a list of my best ideas and start posting them soon, would love for this to be a norm that people take on, always recording and sharing your absolute best ideas. Then we could compile all of the ideas together in one master list and vote on the very best ones to get a ranked list of all time best/most useful ideas.