> As most readers here would agree

And yet we are still confronted with NDAs just to listen to "Facebook for Farmers" pitches.

Perhaps it's better to say those entrepreneurs are afraid of their implementers leaving with all of the domain specific knowledge; believing that it would allow them re-create the product and outmaneuver the entrepreneur.

Of course it's never really that easy, but so few fears are rational.

I work at an organization with about 75 employees, and I'm the only person who can program. Half the time I go out for drinks with coworkers, someone corners me and wants to tell me about this awesome idea they have. Unfortunately, they can't tell me anything because I haven't signed an NDA yet. So they spend a few hours being coy, and I spend a few hours trying to politely decline. It's always an iPhone app too. I've never worked on mobile development or Apple products before. This does not discourage them in the least.

Half the reason I want increased computer science education is because I'd like this madness distributed across more people.

That was so on the money. This happens to me too. My financial advisor and his friend want me to build them an iphone app. Please save me.

I've got another good anecdote.

I went in for an in-person interview at a company. At the end of the interview process, the interviewer let me know I hadn't gotten the job, but told me I should connect with him on LinkedIn because he and his friend had a great business idea that needed a developer.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, since I've had interviewers reach out to me after I've been rejected to say the same thing. It seemed exceedingly strange that I was solicited to work on another project in person by the interviewer during the interview process.

> My financial advisor and his friend want me to build them an iphone app

You can get a new financial advisor. My _wife_ wants me to build her an iPhone app.

If you don't build her iPhone app for too long, that will be done by someone else, you know.

You can get a new wife.

Some people really like their financial advisors!

THIS!

I used to help run 3 Day Startup San Antonio. Part of the format is that the first night includes pitches by a select number of people hoping to get voted into the top X ideas that are worked on for the rest of the weekend.

We once had a guy whose first slide was just an NDA in tiny font that he actually read aloud to 50 people. I was in the back of the room with some of the other staff and I had to step out because I was laughing too much.

Well, if it's the typical person who does pitch "Facebook for Farmers", I'd say the fear is kinda rational, as those people never intend to do any of the work. They just had the idea, and now you need to go make it happen.

There is an argument to be made that a larger organization might be able to take your idea and run faster than you with it.

In practice though, most of the time your idea is too small or too risky to be on the radar of those organizations.

A bit like how when you wake up a dream you had makes perfect sense until you try to describe it to someone else.

You just defined Amazon.

That's the core of the innovator's dilemma.

The idea that ideas have no value is prima facie ridiculous. The reason we aren't just a slightly odd species of chimpanzees is that we developed the ability to produce ideas. Ideas are the only thing of fundamental value to us as an intelligent species.

The statement that ideas don't matter, only execution matters, can only apply among sets of trivial ideas that don't change the landscape. Yes, if you want to make Facebook for Farmers, that's an idea that is completely interchangeable with hundreds of other equally trivial ideas, and it doesn't matter which one you choose so much as how well you execute on it. But if you have a genuinely significant idea, something that can fundamentally alter the landscape or advance humanity, then execution is secondary, and, in fact, lots of different people or organizations could implement it. That isn't to say that you can't screw up the execution and fail thereby, but the limiting factor to success is different for trivial ideas vs significant ideas: there are thousands of trivials and the major factor of success is how well you execute the one you choose; there are few significants, and the major factor in success is having them first/getting to market first. If you think you have one of the latter, NDAs might make sense.

>Ideas are the only thing of fundamental value to us as an intelligent species. I'm sorry but you're wrong. Its not ideas that are the only thing of fundamental value... information might come close.

Ideas + experimentation to validate them + implementation is where its at. An idea by itself without execution is a fantasy.

> Ideas are the only thing of fundamental value to us as an intelligent species.

In my usage, 'information' describes patterns that exist in the universe, and 'ideas', at least loosely, describes the apprehension of one or more of those inherent patterns by an intelligent mind. An idea is the mental perception or conception of external information. Information might be fundamental to the universe, but ideas are fundamental to intelligent minds, being the lens through and by which we perceive everything.

My point, though, was mostly that it's false that ideas have no value - I wasn't trying to make the complete opposite error and say that execution has no value. Of course to make something happen in the world you need execution as well as something to execute.

The reason we aren't just a slightly odd species of chimpanzees is that we developed the ability execute on ideas. Otherwise we're low-hair primates thinking about maybe fire.

> Ideas are the only thing of fundamental value to us as an intelligent species.

I'm not arguing that execution has no value. Obviously ideas, particularly business/startup ideas, must be acted on effectively in order to become real. But: ideas are logically prior to execution; the ability to conceive of abstract ideas is a far larger developmental step than is the subsequent ability to act on those ideas; and being able to have abstract ideas is the thing that most definitively separates homo sapiens from all other species on Earth.

I agree with what you're saying here, but the argument isn't about the the value of ideas with regards to our species's success, but rather about the value of ideas with regards to a given businesses's success.

The original argument was about business success, and that's what my original comment was mostly about. But the reply to my original comment that I was replying to here, seemed to be taking the argument toward the general success of our species, and that's what I was responding to (although I did note even within that context how it related to business success).

Most readers here would agree, but then again most readers here benefit from that perspective and tend overvalue their work relative to the creativity and research behind it. Both are necessary. Sure, there are delusional business types that think that their idea is gold and are willing to offer you 3% if you do all the work. But you are suggesting the exact opposite and it is just as delusional. Silicon Valley is a testament to bad ideas backed by talented executors.

In hindsight what would be some ideas that you think would be worth lots of money? Most of the unicorns I know about and are aware of what they do don't boil down to a great idea.