The "ideas are a dime-a-dozen" and "nobody wants to steal your idea" are situation-specific. Most often, they come up as a response to first-time entrepreneurs

The "ideas are a dime-a-dozen" and "nobody wants to steal your idea" are situation-specific. Most often, they come up as a response to first-time entrepreneurs who have a very vague idea ("facebook for cats"), but refuse to tell it to potential advisors, investors or developers without a 10-page NDA. In such situations, "the idea" really isn't valuable. * It rarely has any depth or nuance beyond a single sentence vision. * It hasn't been market-tested or proven to be any good yet. * All startups will pivot, and the initial idea will be discarded after feedback from customers. * Once the first prototype launches, it will be public anyway, and if successful, will attract competitors. * An investor or developer has no interest in becoming a founder of your idea, marketing it, and managing the business side. * All developers have 10 project ideas they would already like to work on (that they consider much more promising than yours), but they can work on yours because they get paid for it. In such situations, discussing an idea with people who can actually help you execute it is far more useful than keeping it a secret. Keeping secrets or signing NDAs can be useful in other situations, for example not telling your competitors about your upcoming marketing plans, or when disclosing customer databases.