[DanielBMarkham]

Ideas are worthless. Opportunities could have a lot of value. Or not. With tech ideas it's mostly not, but not always. This "ideas are worthless" -- which I firmly believe, by the way -- is just a rule of thumb. It's not one of the Ten Commandments.

Share ideas. Think a bit about sharing opportunities before you do.

I have an idea to sell apples. So what? Everybody does. Share it.

I have an opportunity to buy apples down the street at one dollar and sell them in a nearby town. In this town apples are already selling for ten dollars each and the vendors are constantly running out of stock.

In that case, I'd keep my mouth shut and go sell some apples.

Ideas are just little blurbs. Opportunities are descriptions of value.

The reason your "I'm making the next E-bay for Twitter Reputations" idea is worthless is because it's a blurb, like selling apples, it's not an opportunity.

[hackinthebochs]

Thank you for injecting some much needed nuance into this discussion. The "ideas are worthless" meme always rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed obvious to me of counter examples to this, where an idea at just the right time was the driving force behind success. You explained perfectly what I couldn't quite articulate.

[eurleif]

Is there such a thing as a good idea that isn't an opportunity, and never was? Or is the difference between a good idea and an opportunity based solely on chronology?

[itmag]

I think the problem is that these Silicon Valley types (I'm in Sweden) have a very low barrier for what constitutes a "good idea". What they call ideas I think of as stoner musings. Like, uhm, Facebook for cats, man. Totally.

No one in my part of the world seems to believe in the "ideas are useless, so share them with everyone" meme at all and I think there's a reason for that.

Then again, I do share most of my ideas: http://ideashower.posterous.com