Execution pays your salary. Innovation pays your pension – Steve Blank

This statement by Steve Blank suggests, that while executing well can help you meet short-term goals and objectives, and earn your salary, it is often innovation and the ability to develop new ideas and solutions that will secure the financial future of the company in the long term.

In a capitalist and highly competitive world, you can not simply rely on the past and current achievements. Even when you have a lot of patents protecting your product or service. Sooner or later competition will catch up, thus it is important to always innovate, to always try to find new ways to generate income or at least new products and features that will keep the clients loyal to your brand.

Executing well will earn the business money, and let you pay salaries. But, it is innovating that will keep paying the salaries in the future, or pay for pension.