An idea is a direction. If he wants to move forward with the instantiation he's moving forward in the same direction. That's like saying paraphrasing isn't plagiarism. It's not the same if it's different.
You can tell this happens because ten startups may start with the same "idea" but end up with completely different concrete solutions
Airbnb is an idea. If you do it a little bit different it's still the same idea. The value lies in what the customer receives, not the man-years. If you've built something with large customer benefit then you've done something. But the customer benefit comes from the direction the original idea took.
Now that you've presumably done some of that work, the core original idea remains as useless as ever
If the idea has changed completely then yes, but that's probably a different idea. Google search is still Google search even though they've added countless man-years to it.
He wants the idea because he wants to solve the same customer problem in the same way. Especially if the original idea unveiled a problem that was ignored. An idea can often identify a problem. No amount of implementation can do that.
This is the problem with metaphors. They get misunderstood and misapplied.
I didn't mean a general direction, I meant a specific one. Like a telephone is different from a cellphone. Landlines have only so much potential. You may attribute cellphones to implementation, but someone had to figure it out.
How many millions of man hours would make AirBnB worth more than Groupon? Not the best example, but I'm sure you get it. Ideas have limits, but so does implementation.
You can tell this happens because ten startups may start with the same "idea" but end up with completely different concrete solutions
Airbnb is an idea. If you do it a little bit different it's still the same idea. The value lies in what the customer receives, not the man-years. If you've built something with large customer benefit then you've done something. But the customer benefit comes from the direction the original idea took.
Now that you've presumably done some of that work, the core original idea remains as useless as ever
If the idea has changed completely then yes, but that's probably a different idea. Google search is still Google search even though they've added countless man-years to it.
He wants the idea because he wants to solve the same customer problem in the same way. Especially if the original idea unveiled a problem that was ignored. An idea can often identify a problem. No amount of implementation can do that.