Every Entrepreneur Should Want Google Stealing Their Startup Ideas
Why the biggest fear of young founders should actually be their biggest goal
A former student stopped by my office hours to get some feedback on a new company he was thinking of launching. The concept was for an enterprise SaaS platform to help large companies track internal metrics using AI or machine learning or something like that. In this case, the specifics don’t matter.
What matters is, as we were finishing our conversation, he asked one of the most flawed question in entrepreneurship:
“Should I be worried about a big company like Google or Salesforce stealing my idea?”
I get this question a lot, and it always makes me chuckle because of how ridiculous it is once you pause to consider what’s actually being asked.
To be fair, on its surface, the question doesn’t seem ridiculous. It actually seems logical. If, as an entrepreneur, you genuinely believe you’re building something of immense value, wouldn’t other companies want to steal the idea? And, if other companies would want to steal the idea, wouldn’t the biggest threat be well-resourced companies with huge teams and massive budgets?
In a word: NO!
