
"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas.  If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats." (Howard Aiken) Is this true? - amichail

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staunch
I think it's more the vision than just the idea that matters. Superficially
understanding an idea and really "getting it" is different. In the end you're
protected from most people by their own lack of knowledge, skepticism, small
thinking, etc.

The people who are smart enough to steal your idea, in a way that would be
competitive, probably have their own ideas or would be willing to work
together.

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eli
If your idea is so obvious and easily understood that you have to worry about
it being stolen, then you gotta wonder why someone hasn't already done it.

Also, talk is cheap. And ideas are just talk.

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iamwil
While it might not be entirely true, it certainly gives you an attitude that
affects your behavior for the better, especially at early stages. From my
limited experience, talking about your ideas to both laypeople and technical
people can only help you.

Talking to laypeople helps you solidify and lets you practice pitching what it
is that you're doing. When you're working at a company, you don't have to
explain yourself very much. But when you say you're doing a startup, I've
found that most people will demand more of an explanation. However, most
people don't have the patience in everyday settings to listen to more than 2
or 3 minutes of it. This helps you whittle out the core of what it is that
you're trying to build. Call it a functional spec cleaning, if you want.

Talking about your ideas with technical people might give you insight into
different areas you're not as familiar with. The more that I read, the more I
realized everything is inter-related. But it's hard to have that kind of
breadth in this day and age of specialization--there's just way too much to
know. Talking to technical people will often times help you make connections
and leads to other technical fields that will help you get a feel for where
else you can dig or if you're digging in the right place.

That said, most people won't steal your ideas for the same reasons mentioned
before by others. Doubts and eagerness to point out how it might not work.
Lack of vision, breadth and depth to understand the problem and implications.
Lack of technical ability. Lack of time. Lack of motivation.

And after reading and talking to people, it seems like ideas end up changing.
It's only when you're a bit bigger that you'd have to worry about secrets.

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lak
It's certainly true for my startup. I've been advertising my ideas for years,
hoping someone else would do all the work, but in desperation I'm now building
a company to produce the software I was hoping someone else would make.

Look at Google -- they tried to sell their algorithm so they could stay in
school, but no one was interested, so they had to put up or shut up. If a
bunch of people already thought your idea was a good idea, it'd effectively be
a mature space.

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bootload
'... if a bunch of people already thought your idea was a good idea, it'd
effectively be a mature space. ...'

I'd modify that slightly...

'people already thought your idea was a good (MONEY SPINNER) idea , it'd
effectively be a mature space. ...'

New ideas maybe easy to come up with but translation into a product is not
easy. If you can see a new idea implemented & copy it you piggy back on the
innovation of others thinking & implementing.

Compare for instance Flickr to say Zoomer. The later was developed post flickr
& probably quicker. The point being Flickr came up with the wonderful clean
url design, api design and concepts such as 'favourites'. It also showed there
was a market. Zoomer copied lots of Flickr ideas without having to think,
tinker & hack.

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whacked
This entry asks a yes/no question, when there is no yes/no answer. If you read
the TechCrunch comments on FreeBase, there are a couple of people who say they
had the exact same idea -- one even reserved "ifreebase.com." The idea is
definitely not new. Facebook wasn't entirely novel either. There are a lot of
factors that can make a good idea unprofitable, or a so-so idea a big hit (who
knew what AJAX was before it was called "AJAX"?). So, yes, your idea may be
stolen if it's good. If your idea is obvious, there is a chance that people
are just too lazy to implement it. The only way to win in either case, is to
work damn hard on your idea until fruitition.

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drop19
I'm halfway through Founders at Work and the conclusion I am getting is an
overwhelming yes. The chapter on Hotmail is pretty illuminating -- nobody else
they talked to thought web-based e-mail was remotely a good idea.

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zaidf
Almost everyone I meet(there are exceptions) is pessimistic of all my ideas.
Which is lots of fun because you can tell they don't quite get the "whole
thing" as you have in your mind no matter how well you explain to them.

Co-incidentally I wrote a post titled "Mere ideas have never been this
useless" just earlier today. You can read it here:
http://www.zaid360.com/?p=63

\--Zaid

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danielha
The best ideas are innovative and edgy. Any competitors will be behind the
curve once they realize what you already know.

If your idea is good in a duh-obvious sense, then you can be damned sure
someone else is already doing it or has done it. The way to succeed in this
aspect is by doing it better where others have been lazy.

~~~
volida
I think I've read it in one of PG's essays, who sais always choose the harder
solution because you thought the easy one because you are being lazy?

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ced
Applying to YC is a bet that this statement is not true in general. Or that
they invest in great teams with ideas that they do not fully appreciate.

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apenwarr
And yet not all ideas are good ones:
http://www.advogato.org/person/apenwarr/diary.html?start=258

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juwo
ideas floating in air? true. ideas implemented in a prototype? untrue

