I would consider one of my best friends to be way smarter than I am, maybe even a genius. But he has odd execution patterns. If a professor gives him an assign

I would consider one of my best friends to be way smarter than I am, maybe even a genius. But he has odd execution patterns. If a professor gives him an assignment, he'll produce an A relatively effortlessly. He had 3 majors in 5 years, and was in the top 1% in each department. I considered him to be an asset, so when I told him about one of my start-up ideas, I expected he'd translate his academic execution into product execution. Definitely not the case. It was 6 months before I realized this guy was brilliant, but failed to connect the dots in real applications. He just did not have the personal drive to get anything done, nor did he *care*. And this was someone who initially showed a lot interest, and wasn't even a threat! My point is that even people who may seem like they may be a threat to copy your idea, probably do not even care enough to pursue it. I'd be willing to bet that the population of individuals who actually execute on their ideas to completion is pretty rare...so those who execute on others ideas is probably even rarer.