> I have pages of side project ideas
Well evidently not for you. But please don't assume everybody's mind or personality works the same way yours does. You were told to not judge everybody by the same subjective yardstick and your immediate response is to.. project and judge everybody by the same yardstick.
The ability to generate side project ideas or the interest in investing huge amounts of time into a project on your own time are largely orthogonal to the ability to actually build things when it's your job.