A couple months ago, the founders of ConnectU (Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra) sued Facebook and Mark Zuckerburg claiming he stole their idea (and code) when building Facebook. Then Aaron Greenspan recently claimed it was actually all his idea.

These people are just absurd. Ideas are easy. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Anybody can have an idea. Only a select few can execute on the idea and turn it into something great. I’m talking about the real work: designing a usable product, building a scalable solution, recruiting a team, responding to mistakes you make, building a loyal customer base, etc. The list is infinite. Say a friend gives you the idea to run a marathon. You train and end up winning. Does your friend deserve a cut of the winnings or credit? Absolutely not. Why is Facebook exploding while ConnectU flounders? Because Facebook out executed them. Because Facebook built a compelling application and ConnectU built a mediocre one. Why doesn’t Aaron get any credit for the idea? Because ideas are easy, making them real is hard.