"People can and will learn to program if it starts to seem like that's a valuable skill." That's basically just a restatement of what I said (more people will

"People can and will learn to program if it starts to seem like that's a valuable skill." That's basically just a restatement of what I said (more people will learn to program if there are greater rewards for doing so). The thing is, there aren't greater rewards for doing so. Startups aren't any more profitable now than they were ten years ago, and programmers at big companies don't make more now than they did ten years ago (inflation-adjusted). "I'd say the upper bound on the number of startups is the number of people who are determined and smart enough. That's probably between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1000." Few could argue that, say, investment bankers are quite smart and extremely determined (and very good at sales besides), but there's extremely little overlap between investment bankers and technical startup founders, and that doesn't look like it's going to change. Same for corporate law, management consulting, etc. Plenty of i-bankers and consultants and corporate lawyers go into other fields, including non-technical startup positions (eg. Jessica Livingston). Indeed, one of the primary reasons people go into these industries is for the exit opportunities. But very few seem to learn how to code.