Is Execution More Important than Vision?

By Sarah Lacy

A few years ago, Max Levchin—of PayPal and Slide fame— told me there were two kinds of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley: Those who work tirelessly and are great at execution, and those who are visionary and truly create new ideas—and sometimes new markets. Levchin put himself in the former category. Indeed, a lot of Slide’s success has just been the result of doing a better job ripping off ideas from competitors like RockYou. He put Evan Williams of Blogger and Twitter in the latter. At the time, Twitter was only a techy phenomenon, but Max noted that unlike a lot of other Web 2.0 companies, Twitter was one of the only ones doing something untested and new.

With all the hyperbole about Twitter today, if I asked you whether the executor or the visionary would wind up being more successful, nearly everyone would say the visionary. But—as Levchin no doubt knew when he made this point—the visionary is usually the one that gets the shaft in Silicon Valley.

Napster changed the music world, but it was iTunes that profited off of it. Google (GOOG) was one of the last companies in the Internet bubble to try their hand at building a search engine—and was laughed out of some VCs’ offices as a result. Palm (PALM) pioneered the smart phone, not Blackberry. And Friendster was the social network pioneer before Mark Zuckerberg even entered college.

What about Apple? Well it was visionary when it came to the computer, but what turned the company around was the iPod and the iPhone—both just way better versions of MP3 player and smart phones. You can extrapolate it to enterprise software too: Is it i2, PeopleSoft or Siebel that ended up reaping top dog rewards for creating the software that now runs every single large company? Nope. It’s SAP—a company great at applications but horrible at underlying technology—and Oracle—a company great at technology but horrible at applications.

Of course, you can’t talk about this issue without bringing up TiVo: The company that revolutionized how we watch TV and dramatically altered the business model of nearly everyone in that medium, whether it’s cable companies, networks, or advertisers. What was its reward? The company has mostly limped along losing money as competitors ripped off their idea and gave boxes away for free. Most people who use the verb “TiVo” have never even owned a TiVo.

Tom Rogers, TiVo’s CEO, granted a rare interview to NBC’s Press:Here, and he laid out his vision for why TiVo is getting stronger. First there are the financials: It finally turned a profit on net income last year, and a healthy one at about $100 million. Second, there’s the stock: It’s up from a November 16 low of $4.60 a share to nearly $11 a share. But the big question is where future growth will come from. Who doesn’t have a TiVo who wants one at this point?

In essence, Rogers says the company’s future lies in three main areas: Getting way more content than just broadcast and cable on their box; pioneering Internet-like market research on what people watch down to the second they start fast-forwarding through a commercial, and cooperating with TV stations to come up with ways to get their advertising message across that people will actually consume. The heavy lifting here won’t be innovation as much as it’ll be tough execution. Of course the company could always get bought. But given the stock bump, that’s probably not in the offing any time soon.

Original post

Comments

[WHAB:]

Both should be important for long-term growth and world-changing innovation, and only Apple seems able to successfully execute its vision...

Jun 28 12:03 PM

[peter02l:]

Just those two categories? So there aren't any that hare good visionaries and also great in executions? Or those who suck at both? What about those who can spot talent well and and end up hiring good visionaries who are great at execution?

Jun 28 04:47 PM

[peter02l:]

Just those two categories? So there aren't any that are good visionaries and also great in execution? Or those who suck at both? What about those who can spot talent well and and end up hiring good visionaries who are great at execution?


Fixed it. That second sentence was particularly bad!

Jun 28 04:49 PM

[curiouscat:]

You need both. management.curiouscatb.../ Doing the right things poorly is probably better than doing the wrong things well, but you really need to do the right things well. Good execution is in many ways easier. You don't need to invent new things. You just need to practice what has been known for decades but so many fail to do so that if you just follow good advice from Deming, Ackoff, Ohno... you can clean up on those that fail to adopt sensible management practices.

Jun 28 08:45 PM

[Spook:]

Attending a marketing high technology training 10 years ago, this was already a debate. Which is better? company that is innovative and be the first to market? or a company that play catch up and do a better me-too? The only way for a company be it an innovator or a me too to thwart competition is to set the entry barrier high, the only way for me-too player to dislodge incumbent is to play better with pricing, marketing, or value added.

Jun 29 08:53 AM

[mollytjm:]

i don't think Apple can be dismissed as a visionary when it came to the iPod and iPhone. a visionary is one who sees the timeline and where it's going, ahead of the pack. Apple sees and makes products that feel like they're part of us because in the future, they actually will be.

For a tech company, good, fast innovation is essential, but an understanding of where things are going and how to run a business must be there for the long haul. Complacency is deadly...both Sony with its Walkman and Palm with its Treo discovered this. Microsoft thought it had everyone caught up in Windows and dragged its feet for years, finally 'producing' Vista and releasing it on the unsuspecting public. These were huge mistakes in vision AND business. .

Kodak waiting until this year to finally release a digital polaroid camera... like digital was going away and we'd all go back to 35mm film.

So, execution is not more important than vision....Vista and Zune are find examples of that. There are companies that can do both...Apple for one.

Jun 29 10:27 AM

[Darla:]

TiVo has a brillliantly designed, simple-to-use product that is headed for obsolescence. The dual tuner functionality of TiVo--which makes it so useful -- is being disabled as cable providers are quickly migrating to digital-only service. Dual (or triple) recording can only be achieved at present when there is analog reception. The DVR can simultaneously record one analog and one digital channel, or two analog channels. Two digital channels can't be recorded at once. Satellite is all digital and cable companies are changing over at a rapid rate to have more room for more income-producing channels. TiVo needs to address this. TiVo is selling hardware up front and then a subscription to access guide information and other features, but they need to figure out an answer to the loss of hardware functionality.

More content that duplicates what is available elsewhere is not enough. TiVo needs to come up with another technological breakthrough to lure new customers. Most of its extra services have been eclipsed by smartphones and computers: weather, traffic, music and podcasts. TiVo access to these features is cumbersome. TiVo's "search" is excellent, but desperately needs an updated interface. Using their photo service is cumbersome. Perhaps TiVo ought to look at improved games. TiVo's download service (Amazon) for movies and tv has to compete with Hulu which is free, and Netflix which has no time constraints. TiVo also has dragged its heels in supporting Macintosh computers, despite its growing share in their own target market. They have promised Mac compatibility in TivoToGo for years, but Mac owners are still required to purchase expensive 3rd party software to achieve the same thing PC owners get for free.

TiVo's customer satisfaction surveys both via phone (after an interaction) or their extensive questionnaires are very poorly designed, so they are not getting the feedback that would help them.

Jun 30 10:38 AM

[jmmx:]

"What about Apple? Well it was visionary when it came to the computer, but..."

Very odd.

Visionary is a lot more than simply a base technology. So Apple did much more than a simple improvement of exiting mp3 players (which, after all, are simply updated versions of the Walkman). It added not only a brilliant interface, but had the vision to open the iTunes store, and the rest is history.

As for the iPhone, the interface was truly visionary, and a greater leap forward than merely adding a phone to an existing PDA. (And let's not forget that Palm itself copied the PDA from Apple's Newton - now THAT was visionary!)

As another SA writer has said:
"... there is more innovation in this one device than most companies can muster in a lifetime."
Scott Karp
seekingalpha.com/artic...

As WHAB says above:
"... and only Apple seems able to successfully execute its vision."

Jun 30 12:57 PM