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Now I am sure this keynote was just trying to be provocative and make people think but: Really? Seriously? You think that other skills - sales, marketing , fin

Now I am sure this keynote was just trying to be provocative and make people think but: Really? Seriously? You think that other skills - sales, marketing , financial , even secretarial type things require the same kind of thinking , the same kind of people as programming. And you also think that someone that can program will either a) be happy doing a completely different job than their skill set or b) be worth using as a developer if their main skill is sales , marketing etc. Now I am sure you can find the odd person who is a brilliant sales person (for example) and a great developer - but why? I don't want my sales people cutting code I want them selling stuff. There is a phrase "jack of all trades, master of none" - sounds like the kind of people you will end up with

lsc 17y ago
sounds to me like he's talking about simple stuff that is related to your work, like a sales guy who can understand how analytics works, and make changes to HTML, etc... if you are selling over the web, e.g. a product that costs a small amount per user, nearly all your marketing is going to consist of writing and analytics, so a salesguy who can't handle that sort of thing is of limited utility. (of course, if you are selling a high dollar product with face to face sales, this is different.)
replicatorblog 17y ago
Regarding that phrase there is a last line, usually forgotten: "Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than a master of one" http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-jack-of-all-trades.htm http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-jack-of-all-trades.htm I don't think it is just provocation. He is talking about <20 person start ups for the most part. The example of a sales person being able to run custom analytics is a good example. At 20 people I don't think it is weird to expect a sales guy to be able to format an HTML email or have an engineer go on a sales call. There needs to be some multiple hat wearing for the venture to succeed.

lsc 17y ago

sounds to me like he's talking about simple stuff that is related to your work, like a sales guy who can understand how analytics works, and make changes to HTML, etc... if you are selling over the web, e.g. a product that costs a small amount per user, nearly all your marketing is going to consist of writing and analytics, so a salesguy who can't handle that sort of thing is of limited utility. (of course, if you are selling a high dollar product with face to face sales, this is different.)

replicatorblog 17y ago

Regarding that phrase there is a last line, usually forgotten: "Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than a master of one" http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-jack-of-all-trades.htm http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-jack-of-all-trades.htm I don't think it is just provocation. He is talking about <20 person start ups for the most part. The example of a sales person being able to run custom analytics is a good example. At 20 people I don't think it is weird to expect a sales guy to be able to format an HTML email or have an engineer go on a sales call. There needs to be some multiple hat wearing for the venture to succeed.