I think the real reason people say &#x27;ideas are cheap&#x27; - is because in the grand scheme of things - an idea is not worth much.<p>An idea on it&#x27;s own, is just an idea - without a really good execution &#x2F; team behind it - it has little to no value.<p>Only once a good idea has been executed really well, by a good team - does that idea suddenly have value. Generally the &#x27;proportional&#x27; effort of actually executing the idea (in time &#x2F; money &#x2F; resources) - compared to the effort in generating the &#x27;idea&#x27; - makes just having the &#x27;idea&#x27; cheap.<p>This is not to say all ideas should be valued equally - there are both good ideas and bad ideas, but no idea will provide value (or have much worth) without it being executed really well.<p>(Hence someone can think of something like &#x27;uber&#x27; or &#x27;facebook&#x27; - relatively simple concepts to conceive as an idea - but without huge efforts in execution - they would not have become as valuable as they are).<p>What I mostly notice is that people who have never tried to execute an idea (or don&#x27;t even know where to start) - are the ones who generally value ideas the highest. e.g. someone may say &#x27;I have an amazing idea, but I won&#x27;t tell anyone in case they steal it&#x27;... or someone else may say something like &#x27;I had the idea for facebook before facebook existed&#x27;.<p>In both of these examples - the person has valued their &#x27;idea&#x27; as much as the end execution.