I've been surprised to note that a large number of people I've met with bad ideas are following them because they lack the ambition or the ability to execute on their better ideas. So they go after a market that's too small to be worth addressing, because they can see how to get there, without realizing that no one knows exactly how to approach the huge markets. The only difference is that they're willing to try.

Of course, I've also met people who actually are going after big ideas that are bad because they are too big for a startup. Things that change the shape of the world...it takes a whole market to do that. So, maybe I'm just making up generalizations just like everybody else.

But the point about "Which would you rather build, your own ideas or someone elses?" is the most important. Every time a "business" or "ideas" or "product" guy starts talking about his awesome idea, and he just needs someone to implement it, he's showing himself to be so self-involved as to be intolerable to work with for most hackers--every hacker he talks to has his own "good" ideas, but the "idea" guy thinks he's got a monopoly.

That's all the article is saying, and I've been around startups long enough to know that it's generally true.

Because valuing an idea as "good" or "bad" is difficult and largely subjective?

His point maybe would've been clearer if he'd said something like "Coming up with workable/interesting/possible ideas is easy."

because you don't really know an idea is good until you take a risk and test it... a lot of things we take for granted today seemed like 'bad ideas' before masses accepted them