How to discuss idea without someone stealing it?

Those who have the ability to execute are unlikely to steal your idea because they're already executing on their own.

Remember: no one can steal your brain. You are unique

People are busy doing other stuff. Your idea is important and one of the first steps, but there are more to make it a reality:

• Who are your potential customers
• How you interact, communicate with them
• How you will build the product
• Your pricing strategy
• Etc

What I see here on IH is people helping each other all the time. It's a great community to share and discuss ideas

how can you discuss your idea without someone stealing it?

You can't and you shouldn't worry about things that you can't control.

Also, I believe ideas are worthless and execution is important:

• "Build a rocket and fly to the moon" Easy to think, really hard to do.
  If someone "steal" that idea and does a really good job executing it, It's better for the common good, right?

Having the idea is the first step, now concentrate in making, that's the hard part where everybody fails.

Just My humble opinion. :)

Your idea is worthless until you execute.

Nobody will steal your idea because they are already busy doing their own product/idea/company :-) It's too much hassle to completely change one's life, which is required to take over somebody else's idea. I even wrote about that in my blog months ago, maybe that will be inspiring: https://cubitoo.com/en/blog/insights/they-won-t-steal-your-idea

In my life, I've gone through 3 phases of how to deal with my ideas:

Phase 1: There was a time, when I was very hesitant to share my ideas, because I thought everyone would steal it and become a millionaire, instead of me.

Phase 2: After then, I thought, it actually doesn't matter. Execution is all.

Phase 3 (I'm currently in this phase): Today I think, neither execution is all, nor ideas can't be stolen. Frankly, (sigh) it depends on the idea. I think in fact there exist ideas, which are worth guarding. Sometimes it's just execution, sometimes it's the idea. And yeah, maybe if someone steals it, it won't be what you had in mind. It could be even better.

Besides, it just gives the "copycat" a headstart, which is worth a lot nowadays. Sure, you can't prevent people from stealing your idea, but at least you'll be at the front already.

So, how you determine, whether an idea can be shared or not?

I like to ask some questions to myself (this list is not extensive):

• Do you actually need to share the idea, e.g. what's the potential benefit of sharing it?
• Can you share it with someone in private first, who you can trust that he/she will not steal it?
• Can the idea accumulate a large user base? E.g. the larger the potential userbase, the more likely the idea tends to be stolen in a way, that would be harmful to you.
• Would it harm you, if the idea gets stolen? (e.g. could several projects with the same basic idea coexist, without doing serious harm outside of healthy market competition, like Trello vs. Asana, Github vs. Gitlab, Rolex vs. Casio watches, Android vs. iOS, etc. A harmful competitor would be probably something like a copycat of AirBnb, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Those ideas tend to have incremental overall value for everybody, the more users are on the platform. That's why they are monopolies, cause they were the first and grew the fastest. Everything else nowadays that copies those companies just doesn't survive, or at least doesn't thrive)
• Are you determined (no, I mean really determined) to build it? If not, you can just share the idea as well. This would be probably even an idea, that you would want to be stolen.
• Have you tried everything else? Are you at a point where you say "fuck it, this is the last shot at this."?
• ...

Also, as you train your instinct on business ideas and execute some of them regularly, you'll learn to tell if the value of the idea is in the idea itself, or rather in the execution (this has nothing to do with seeing whether an idea is good or not).

On a lighter note - FAANG will steal my idea.

I think the crucial point is commitment to execution. Great products tend to need time and the potential 'idea thief' who might steal and even implement your idea is likely to run out of steam along the way.
If your idea fascinates you enough to keep you motivated for months if not years, hardly anybody will be able to keep up.

One example is Fisker Automotive. They 'stole' the idea of the original Tesla Model S, even shipped their own product. However, they couldn't keep up the pace and eventually ran out of steam (or in this case, money).

Embrace feedback and do not worry about idea "theft". Ideas cannot be legally protected anyway, which leaves you with secrecy. And this is the last thing you want when building a product. Except when working on super-duper-important-national-security-technology. And even then, you wouldn't be brainstorming alone.
You need feedback. Any feedback, from anyone, at any time. You cannot validate people's pain points or your solution market fit by keeping most of it secret.
You need to discuss and share. People will bring ideas or ask questions, and this will push you to reflect on your own interpretation of the solution/idea/product, which may be right or wrong.

I honestly think the probability of us failing as entrepreneurs is way higher than someone stealing our ideas!

Years ago before I knew how to code I asked a developer to sign an NDA while discussing my idea. It put my mind at rest. Lots of people in this thread have chimed in with better advice though.

I'd say "don't give away meta details of your idea", it's the smaller things that make an idea a success

Find groups or make groups that believe what you believe in.

I started a newsletter mastermind. Only 1 person showed up. We're now co-founders.

I've hosted IndieHacker Meetups because there were none. And then got invited to a maker group that now I can call my friends. Who all support each other and help each other with ideas, and making stuff.