Yes. Every idea has some kind of value to it, but it's hard to estimate this value. And it should be obvious that not every idea has the same value. Most ideas

Yes. Every idea has some kind of value to it, but it's hard to estimate this value. And it should be obvious that not every idea has the same value. Most ideas are common-sense things that many people thought of, but nobody invested anything in. But it should also be clear that some ideas have extremely high value. If you plot monetary values to number of ideas with that value, it'd follow something like an inverse square law. There aren't many ideas with high value, but they exist. Out of hundreds of thousands of ideas that people think are brilliant, there will be a few that actually have value. They have to be sufficiently advanced (technologically) that nobody would have thought of it, solve a problem that almost nobody realizes is a problem, and have very clear, easy paths of implementation to making lots of money.