[6ren]

Summary: the people who can execute have ideas of their own. The people who can't, don't. Seems a little too neatly black-and-white to me... yet the data supports it... A nice explanation would be that everyone has great ideas, all the time, but only those who can execute ever get anywhere with them. So it looks like only they have great ideas.

I think there are also people who can execute, but are happy to copy ideas, for the sake of money. Both imitators and employees.

> If your idea is good enough, competitors will pop and try to crush you.

Money changes this. Your theory could explain this by saying that then, the people who can't execute (and have no ideas of their own) can hire people who can execute - and who have forgone their own ideas, for a paycheck.

Aside: once your product gets going, your ideas and issues only fit with your product; they are specialized. Competitors can then only use these secondary ideas if they copy your initial idea. If they do this, they are following you, and transform you into a leader. If you keep improving, you will keep winning (these "sustaining innovations" almost always win - provided the direction you are improving in is the one that customers still want).