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I'm of two minds about this. I like supporting new ideas, but I've found that the quickest way to build the confidence of a new engineer is for them to have something succeed. So I do think there's a balance that has to be struck between supporting whatever they want to try and guiding them towards things that will give them their first taste of success.

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This is true in every sector of work. People are motivated by success. As a marketer who manages a team of 8 (including myself), I've been trying to learn to a) give context into why I might be poo-pooing something and b) a few ideas for other directions we could go.

Part of the job of being a mentor and manager is to guide them in a helpful way to greatness. Allowing them to work on whatever they want to work on is no way to build someone's confidence and skills, let alone a business.

Shipping is better for the confidence. And if you build a prototype that makes it into the product, boy does that raise the confidence level.

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