I hope you don’t feel I unfairly quote-mined you or put words in your mouth (or anyone else’s). I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written (including the post I quoted). I hoped to make that clear in the following sections that by actually “listening” to what you guys said, it was clear you were making an altogether different point.

I think the problem comes when “we” read posts like yours, paul’s, and dharmesh’s and distill it into a general belief that ideas are largely irrelevant.

In a way, we are agreeing, through analogy. I’ve said that the business landscape is complicated in such a way that figuring out which way “downhill” is is extremely difficult. That is precisely what you are saying. In fact, you’ve gone a step farther and said that the starting condition isn’t nearly as relevant as your ability to find and head downhill (because it is so much easier to find a good starting spot than it is to figure out which way to go). I’d agree with that statement, as well.