[CM30]

Yeah, this is the reason right here. There are thousands of people on internet forums, social media sites and subreddits who want to start projects with themselves as the 'idea man', assuming other people will join and do all the actual implementation work. You see it a lot in game design/development communities, where these people talk about how they'll make the next mega 3D MMORPG where you can go anywhere and do anything, and assume they can just come up with the ideas while their team does all the building work.

The idea might potentially be interesting in itself, but without the implementation it won't be all that useful.

[gonehome]

Yep - people like this generally set off alarms for me because ideas are cheap and it’s easy to sit around “thinking of things” and trick yourself into thinking you’re making some sort of progress.

Mainly though it’s through the act of attempting implementation and interacting with the world that you learn the most. Someone who refuses to try to do this to get better probably just isn’t very capable and their ideas probably aren’t very good.

Even if you do come up with an idea that is viable most of the time so have others and it’s the successful execution that sets you apart.

I’ve met people that sit around patting themselves on the back for having the same idea that someone else used to actually build something.

While having the insight is critical, it’s a lot smaller part (also usually their idea was a vague generalization of whatever ended up existing).

Kind of reminds me of how the Winklevoss twins were portrayed in the social network, no idea how true to life that is - but that sense of ownership they had when they didn’t really do anything of value.