I used to be that guy. I used to be the one who didn’t want to tell people my idea for fear that someone would steal it. After all, I had tons of them. Ideas are worth millions, right? Wrong. They are not; it’s what you do with them that matters.

My nearly 23 years of industry business experience had included a lot of trying different things, and while many would fail, something always worked. Beyond all that, a very wealthy (and very famous) person in the adult industry taught me the value of refusing to sign NDAs when it came to investments.

Philosophies suggest a concept of “Universal Knowledge” that when the time is right, an idea pops into many people’s heads at once. This would theoretically make ideas worthless as they are “provided” or spawned to people at opportune times. Given the billions of people on the planet, that would mean any single idea could manifest itself into hundreds if not thousands of people.

Consider the taxi driver I met in London ages ago who said that “everyone wants a fare that takes you to the airport in the morning and one that takes you home at night.” He wanted to code an app for taxi drivers that would allow them to choose preferred fares. He had basically invented Uber but (obviously) didn’t invent Uber. Someone else did, and that’s just the way it goes. A decade later, just yesterday, I had someone pitching me to fund the creation of the next Uber … except it would be “90% cheaper.” C’mon, really? [Continue Reading in XBIZ Magazine]