"I responded that ideas are easy, doing stuff is hard."
Ideas per se are easy; good ideas, not so easy.
"History is littered with inventors who had 'great' ideas but kept them quiet and then poorly executed them. And history is lit up with do-ers who took ideas that were floating around in the ether and actually made something happen."
This suggests that, if you share your ideas with people, but are a bit slow in executing, someone else may beat you to it. It's perhaps a waste to have a good idea and not bother to execute it, but once you decide to act on it, giving others the chance to act faster doesn't seem like good plan.
Ideas per se are easy; good ideas, not so easy.
"History is littered with inventors who had 'great' ideas but kept them quiet and then poorly executed them. And history is lit up with do-ers who took ideas that were floating around in the ether and actually made something happen."
This suggests that, if you share your ideas with people, but are a bit slow in executing, someone else may beat you to it. It's perhaps a waste to have a good idea and not bother to execute it, but once you decide to act on it, giving others the chance to act faster doesn't seem like good plan.