Most of us are hiding. If I count the number of interesting ideas I’ve heard in my life, the number would be really large, not sure the exact number but I would guess around 2-3 zeros in length. The number of people that I know actually working on those interesting ideas they talked about, likely in the order of magnitude of ~10.
I’ve spent a significant portion of my life thinking about what drives people in their thoughts, fears and responses. Obviously, fear of failure is something that is easy to see, and a good go to when looking for excuses, of course most of this is imaginary. The downsides are much less than we ever expect.
Let’s look at Elon Musk. What if Tesla failed today? Bankrupt. Out of business. The papers would probably write headlines weeping for the stockholders, but Elon would likely just jump over to his gig at SpaceX. Even if that didn’t exist, it’s likely people would chock it up to the world not being ready, and I’m sure Elon would come back with new ideas and investors ready to pile money into it. His reputation is strong, and the running of Tesla, failure or not, is a learning experience that can’t be found in many places, so the chance of success in the next venture Elon would work on goes up.
On an alternative thought, even if Elon lost everything and no one was willing to invest. A simple book written about his experience, building running, and lessons learned in the failure would likely sell enough copies for a reasonable, rather than extravagant, income for the remainder of his life. That’s the value of interesting.
When you do interesting work, there isn’t as much downside as it appears on the surface. Keep that close to your chest, hopefully it raises your bravery to take the right risks.
None of this is Right 