He said Ido was created before Esperanto.

As ido means 'offspring' in Esperanto and because I have read solid-matter books about auxiliary languages, I would have to disagree with the person you asked the question of. Maybe he was thinking of Volapük (link), which did pre-date Esperanto. Therre is also a Volapük Wikipedia (link). OTOH, he sounds more rationale than most of the Esperantistas I've run into over the decades.

Ceci n'est pas un seing.