Just another refrain of a trite startup buzz theory.

No, your ideas don't matter if they're not good ideas to begin with. A community for software developers isn't a good idea, and neither were any of the others mentioned.

Keeping your idea semi-secret makes sense when it has no/weak competitors, not when it's a Web 2.0 social search engine.

Pretty trite. I think everybody understands that NDAs are uncool with the cool.

And it's true that the NDA can look pretty stupid when you're some random hacker guy who hasn't done anything and you seem to be taking yourself incredibly seriously with these contracts and agreements of secrecy.

But so what? If you think you're idea is good enough for an NDA, then ask for one. If you're wrong, you'll find out soon enough. But if you're right... the NDA just might work out for you.

Can I ride the wave of coolness if I say "trite" too? lmao.

My adjective is either "obvious" or "old" ;)

Fear of people stealing your idea is only one of many reasons not to tell people your startup idea.

although it seems accepted as universal truth here that VCs never sign NDAs, they do sign mine and i know of other founders who do get them signed as well.

the stated reason why I insist on NDAs is that i do not want to start the patent filing clock until I have decided to. the unstated reason is that I don't want to get zucked by some other founder their associates are friendly with. it's a real risk.

you say it's only execution that should matter, and this may even be true, but i would much prefer those being able to execute parts of my business better to work for me rather than compete.

I'm not very familiar with the space yet, but despite a weak attempt to argue something along the lines of "nobody cares about your idea," this ultimately reads to me like "Don't ask for an NDA, because it would inconvenience me if I decided I wanted to build my own business based on your idea."

That's a legitimate concern though. People have unoriginal broad ideas ("I want to sell stuff through app/website") and supply over-reaching NDAs ("_everything_ mentioned is covered, with no expiration date"). Even if such is ultimately not enforceable, it could still be a major legal pain, if during your lifetime you get to work on a project that also implements some type of "selling stuff online" (see Lodsys' troll patents and legal pursuits).

My friend Bob heard about a company trying out new toasters that makes the test customers sign an NDA before using the toaster.

That may seem crazy but I assure you almost nobody out there knows what those toasters do. And the people who do know aren't talking.

At a guess, they toast bread.