These trends are either evolutionary or entirely predictable. Several so predictable that they first made their debut in movies long before most of us were born.

I think this is what he means. Working on any of these ideas doesn't make you an innovator. You might do something in a slightly better or more novel way, but we aren't inventing crap.

And if you don't execute on your slightly better path, you'll still be beat by someone with a slightly worse idea who buckled down and delivered.

Silicon Valley is littered with companies with better ideas and better base products that lost.

The adage "we stand on the shoulders of giants" comes to mind. Some of the louder people in our industry could stand to remember this.

In truth, there are no giants (or maybe very few). Even the giants of the adage are actually made up of innumerable little people supporting each other.

Do note that when Newton coined the term "standing on the shoulders of giants" in a letter to Hooke, scholars believe he was making a friendly joke about Hooke being a rather delicately built man.

The actual innovations are worth talking about.

But the bullshit starts when people use the technology and claim they are making tech innovations.

Blockchain is missing.

I assumed that Smart Contracts are built on top of the Blockchain.

Smart Contracts kind of covers it.

I think you could sum up Linus's message as something like "don't try to coast on your smarts; they only count for so much."

> ...but there's some truth.

But what truth though, can you be specific?

Talking about technology is necessary to attract people to our own work and find new ideas ourselves. Open source, vendor, Saas. All get value out of conferences, meetups, articles, etc.

Sure, not every word adds value, but the same could be said of code.

This is exactly what he is saying, now time to close this browser - surfing around and Get Work DONE!