in 2025, execution is cheap. distribution is priceless.
as the cost of execution approaches zero, the value of distribution approaches infinity
I built a new website for myself, zdsims.com, and everyone I showed it to asked me “why do you even need one of these?” Their skepticism reveals something fascinating about how technology has transformed the relationship between building and distribution. In 2024, I believe there is a core axiom on the internet: as the cost of execution approaches zero, the value of distribution approaches infinity.
Historically, there was somewhat of an inverse relationship between technical complexity and distribution needs. Certain companies were extremely difficult to build – PG famously coined the “schlep factor” to refer to some of them – often because of the technical and operational complexity required to get a functional product out the door. When the cost of building a product like that is so high, oftentimes that’s enough of a moat to start out as lousy at distribution. And conversely, if you have extreme distribution (as we see oftentimes with celebrities and influencers launching products), starting with a product that’s somewhat less polished off the bat can often be fine so long as you improve it along the way.
The Democratization of Building
In 2024, the cost of execution in software has dropped dramatically. One developer, together with the power of Cursor, Claude, or other LLM-based tools, can build 5-10x faster than they could have beforehand. Andy Jassy has talked about how this has transformed behemoths like Amazon: shipping faster with fewer engineers. Better yet, if you’re not an engineer, you can get started with tools like bolt.new or Replit and code in plain english.
All of this means that the barrier to execution is significantly lower. As a sidenote, one thing about execution does still matter, and that’s a team’s derivative. Are they executing faster with the help of AI on a regular basis? Of course an AI-enabled team theoretically should be able to out-execute one that’s relying on old fashioned hand-written code.
But assuming everyone uses and has access to the same tools to build, what differentiates most products? Distribution.
The Compounding Power of Distribution
We saw this firsthand at Codecademy. We were first movers in a space that was nascent. We launched in 2011, grew to 200,000 users nearly overnight, and continued compounding our lead. Even if an interesting new product launched (and we saw more than quite a few!), upstarts getting distribution for it was challenging, leaving us to always have a bit of an advantage even if we occasionally were slow to the punch executing.
The Evolution of Founder Distribution
For years, I had a pretty strong judgement rule: founders with large Twitter followings could not be successful CEOs. And for the most part, I still feel that that’s the case. As Keith Rabois said…11 years ago…”I don’t know of a single successful CEO or entrepreneur who blogs regularly.” But things have changed over the past 11 years, and a small number of CEOs over the past few years have proven that distribution can be key to building a movement for their product.
I think particularly of Aravind at Perplexity, who I think has done a masterful job of being the face of his product, sharing feature updates, and regularly interfacing with users. Each new product drop is greeted with lots of support from Perplexity fans, and his distribution edge personifies the David vs. Goliath struggle that Perplexity is in against established players like Google.
Given it’s now easier than ever to generate content, just as it is to generate code, the costs of building distribution for entrepreneurs and CEOs have gotten lower too. And, judging by the amount of content I see on my LinkedIn (I shudder to admit I open it occasionally) and Twitter, more than a few people have caught on.
Concluding
What they’re sensing is what I’ve said above: in a world where execution becomes commoditized, one of the only things that matters is distribution (@signull said something smart on this as well). What is important, however, is using that distribution well. If you’re a CEO or Founder, your job on Twitter is to promote your product, not yourself. And it’s almost certainly not to launch a Subscription or focus on monetizing your Twitter profile (when you see that on a Founder/CEO’s profile, it…isn’t a good sign).
So if you’re lurking, it might be time to reconsider. The world’s waiting to hear from you.
(And that’s why I’m back too, with the occasional tweet, blog, and a new website.)