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Comment by nreece | Hacker News Reader

  Moreover I have some plans to release some software.
  But I will not tell you more about my ideas for it now
  as someone might do it before me… :-)

That's a big big myth. Ideas are dime a dozen. What matters is execution. Hasn't this been advocated enough already?!

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I think it's a much advocated and also much (especially here) misunderstood idea.

It doesn't mean that ideas are valueless - just that their inherent value depends on lots of factors (such as your ability/likelihood to execute it).

Releasing one of your ideas does devalue it (because there are now more people with the idea in mind who may execute it before you).

Or in other words: the execution builds the value of the idea. Spreading the idea may devalue any ultimate execution.

Sharing an idea doesn't really devalue it, it increases its value. Keeping ideas private seems sensible -- in that you gain individually, but it doesn't make sense globally. The situation can be addressed with the economic concepts of 'gains from trade' and 'absolute advantage'. It is better for countries to trade freely because they all gain from the different strengths of each. In a similar way it is better for ideas to be shared: each idea can very likely be implemented differently or better by other people -- from which everyone gains.

There's a difference between 'knowing it doesn't really matter' and 'actually doing it'. I'll tout the 'execution is all that matters' story all day every day, but damned if I'm going to share my ideas without a (commercial or community) reason to do so.

What matters is clients!

First you find clients, then you worry about execution and ideas.

I believe it, but if I'm executing on something, I don't share the idea until it's strategically useful to do so.

"having some plans" and "executing on something" is not the same. I have seen it from my own experience that people tends to see their ideas as unique and much more superior than they are in reality. Until you are actually invested in your ideas and at least 75% (my threshold, YMMV) in to it in terms of execution that idea is worth nothing.

I have few dozen ideas on my personal pad, they are worth nothing.

So then share them all.

There is nothing wrong with holding your ideas close.

i share ideas all the time but people wont make the things i suggest... maybe my ideas suck... but i wish more people would steal them so i could use them.

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