Great idea. I actually weed out potential co-founders by asking if they side with the Imperial base commander or the Ewoks. If that doesn't work, I ask them if they're more of a Thelma or a Louise.<p>Edit: let's not forget Alien vs. Predator. I don't want a guy who takes forever stalking an idea. Execution is everything, and nothing executes like a chestbursting alien.
Hang on, there are people who watched that movie and sympathized with the Winkelvii? They were a cartoon character playing up every negative stereotype of old money that exists.<p>That's like someone sympathizing with the villain from Die Hard or something.
I think he undercuts his own argument.<p>If the idea only takes four hours to build, and the result is a commercially value product, then how can he argue the idea isn't the uniquely valuable component, and his labor is really the commodity? Does he really believe that _nobody_else_ can build it in 4 hours or so?<p>Obviously, execution is important. But if someone has an idea that's great and doesn't require a lot of execution, then the majority of the value of the end product should probably be assigned to the idea.
It seems like another indicator would be requiring anyone you want to share the idea with to sign an NDA. Unless you're sharing an already developed algorithm, or something as special sauce, the NDA just comes across as "My idea the important part here".
Based on the movie, Zuckerberg didn't have the decency to inform the people he was working with that he'd moved on. The moment he stopped communicating with them, a red flag should have gone up and they should have parted ways and hired someone else. Both sides contributed to the end result. The Winkelvii should have been more closely involved with the execution of the project. They should have also formalized the relationship legally before allowing him to work on it.
Here are somethings to watch out to weed out non-technical people in my experience:<p>- he says I just need someone to finish the coding part and thinks 90% is done without it<p>- he wants you to sign NDA before telling anything about the product (remember if someone can steal your idea by just talking about it then its probably not a good idea, tell him that)<p>- he does not know enough about common stuff that a startup guy should be aware of, like sxsw, techmeme, hacker news, names of top influencers/bloggers in the industries (scoble, arrington, mg, laporte, dhh.... throw these names out and watch his reaction)
This line of thinking is immature. If you walk in with mentalities like that or dumb filters like the one described, all you will get is strife. We already have enough of these silly dip-stick questions floating around in companies, and HR teams trying these tricks.<p>My advice, take time, talk, and don't work with programmers or people who make their judgements based on a movie plot. It only shows they might be emotional and very difficult to work with.
Do you honestly feel that your idea is far more valuable than my ability to build it (which I could do in about 4 hours)?<p>is the shortcut you are talking about?<p>also, as a lot of people are talking about here, a pop culture question (ultimatum?) isn't really appropriate for filtering out anything (except maybe pop culture).<p>E: comma and spelling, geez
Let's not forget that the twins made at least 60 million dollars from NOTHING but an idea and very little effort. That seems like an incredible business model.<p>/s