[MichaelAza]

It is valuable in the sense that someone productive can extract value from it, i.e. secure funding for a company that may actually produce a product that makes someones life better. That is the same sort of value a natural resource like, say, wood has. It has no value in and of itself, unless imbued with the skillfull work of a productive person. An investor needn't add anything besides capital to the mix. Now, some investors do add expertise or other actual skills of value but that doesn't have anything to do with them being the source of capital, per se. You could argue that investors are proactive in choosing investments that have a good potential for ROI but that doesn't correlate to actual value for actual people, as all the very profitable but very stupid Web 3 and other fad investments show. Sometimes they aren't even profitable, but that's another matter. So yes, investors are as worthless as wool or wood or gold without the time and skill and labor of the worker who preforms the alchemy of transforming this worthless commodity into value.

[aldousd666]

We can disagree on this point. I'd say you can have the best solution, best possible product, best idea, and best people building it, and if you have no capital, you're toast.

[MichaelAza]

In the same way that you could have the best chair design but without the resources, the wood or the steel or what have you, and without the proper tools to shape them, your idea is still just going to be an idea. Would you say that the wood in this scenario has value in and of itself, beyond the value the worker may imbue into it? How about the tools? We as a society have come to recognize the people who dole out access to resources as providing value, but they don't, neither in principle nor in reality. As I said in my earlier comment, the only value one might ascribe to them is only in picking the best ideas and they obviously don't do that. We obviously need a better way to fund creative ideas for the betterment of all.

[Nevermark]

Even if you need X, Y, and Z to make something valuable, it doesn't mean X and Y are valueless without Z.

If you were the only person on the planet, then yes.

But X and Y still have option value. You can sell them our service them to others.

You can keep them, and continue looking for Z.

But X and Y are not valueless. You are just trying to take them in a direction (needing Z) that isn't deploying that value (until you get Z).