Ideas are cheap, they are easy. The hard part is being born into wealth.
The idea that you (and presumably others) are incapable of working on your own ideas because you're not wealthy is ludicrous, and nothing more than an excuse to validate inaction. If you want something, go get it.
Yeah if you wanna go to an Ivy League JUST DO IT! It doesn't matter that you have to work 20+ hours every week to support your family which can't pay the bills! Time you could have invested into school. But does that actually matter if you go to a crappy school your parents decided on? It doesn't matter that you guys don't have money to cover health insurance or regular dentist or doctor's appointments! Got a car? NO! Fuck it not enough money!
The world is WAY less meritocratic than we think.
It's generally assumed that positive thinking is how you get ahead (another American belief), but that doesn't seem to be the case: http://www.newyorker.com/currency-tag/the-powerlessness-of-p...
If so, I'd say that's more a matter of prioritization (assuming at least one project is underway). For example, I think we could all agree that working on 30 projects would be an ineffective way to spend time. Mark Cuban recommends "1, not 50" [1]. You have to pick your best candidate project and run with it, and what's best depends on what your criteria are.
I think the term "fear of failure" is applied too broadly. Often this "fear" is more a healthy respect for the challenge of bringing highly functional yet simple experiences to your end user. Those experiences coupled with a product that solves a legitimate problem, absent any legal or bureaucratic barriers, is a recipe for winning. Understanding the intricacies of the challenge can make it difficult to find a single-threaded manner to work on it. It's almost more of a logical bewilderment than it is fear.
If none of the ~30 projects are being worked on then maybe fear of failure or laziness might apply but it could still be a matter of prioritization.
And I didn't say you said fear of failure was bad, I said it was applied too broadly and possibly not even applicable in this case, though you seem to have thoroughly investigated his background, personality, time expenditures and other personal preferences, so I'm sure you know better.
Try a 100 times and maybe you'll find the one that really clicks with you.
... I was waiting eagerly for the "and execution is difficult."
>The hard part is being born into wealth.
Which gave me quite a hearty chuckle
How to finance the new business in a realistic way should be part of the "idea", just as much as how to make the widget and how to find customers for it.