Obviously everyone starts somewhere. At some point Steve Jobs was just a dude hocking do it yourself circuit boards out of a garage, after all. If you know th

Obviously everyone starts somewhere. At some point Steve Jobs was just a dude hocking do it yourself circuit boards out of a garage, after all. If you know the person, and you know they have what it takes and you believe in them, then I would say go for it. However, if you take the group of all people with 'a great idea', the percentage who actually have any chance at all is so low that it is not worth the time to listen to them. Simply put, if the expected value of listening to someone's idea (whom you have no other information about) is X, the cost in time and attention just to listen to them is some large multiple of X. I obviously believe that the multiple of X is so great that it is not only optimal to not bother to hear what they are saying, but it is actually profitable to actively discourage them. Now, if you have more information about the person, such as your friend, then the prior probability that they will not be wasting your time goes way, way up. It is always worthwhile to take the time to hear out someone you have reason to believe is amazing. The other things I listed in the 'toolkit' were things that make that prior probability high enough that it is worth actively considering dropping what up to now has been your best bet (that is, what you've been working on for months probably) and jumping to whatever they've got cooking. It still probably won't be worth it, but at least there is a good enough chance they aren't just blowing smoke. It's really not complicated. If someone is just starting out, they should partner up with other people who are just starting out. It's only fair, they can jump into it together and take the same risks with each other. If they wan't other people to give up something great, either what they have going now or in lost wages, they have to provide a good enough track record that the expected payout of working with them is not only higher than the alternative, but also high enough that it makes it worth the additional risk.