4 ms·

IN GENERAL this is a great frame of mind to come up with ideas for a non-programming mind; I think, however, that as a developer such a perspective would lead t

by NSX2 19y ago

IN GENERAL this is a great frame of mind to come up with ideas for a non-programming mind; I think, however, that as a developer such a perspective would lead to technically interesting stuff that few people would use / pay for. As time remains constant and life becomes more complicated, I suspect people will become more selective and use more of the kinds of services they would actually bother paying for and limiting their interactions with things that are interesting, but not enough if they actually cost something. That said, most non-programmers usually start the "what would I want built for me" process from the perspective of "that would be so useful that I might even consider paying for it" whereas, from my experience with programmers (trying to recruit for my own startup efforts), most programmers start the "what would I wish someone built" process from the perspective of "that I would respect this guy's technical ability a lot." Case in point: there are tons of ideas that can become good, useful, practical valuable services based on standard, already existing technology reconfigured in different ways. But most programmers, if they're anything like the ones I've come across, would consider that "below them" and instead favor a startup working on some obscure problem that 6 people on the planet could understand and appreciate. Google aside, that rarely translates into "great business".

pg 19y ago
Google aside, that rarely translates into "great business". I think you mean Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo aside.
- aswanson 19y ago
  Throw in Intel, AT&T, and all the early transistor companies for good measure.
  - NSX2 19y ago
    AT&T is too broad and I don't know what you mean specifically, but from a common-sense business perpective, the problem Intel works on is "how to keep making smaller faster better processors" and I think again that's another idea that, technical though it may be, captures the interest of way more than 6 people.
    - aswanson 19y ago
      Who was the market for the original telephone/telegraph, who was the market for the original transistor or microprocessor? Whose interest did those things capture initially outside of a small group of technical people? Were they built and people just lined up outside of Walmart to buy them?
      - NSX2 19y ago
        What does this have to do with programmers? Aside from the fact that I'm talking about programmers and you're extending this to include "all technically-minded people everywhere", in general you're citing exceptions to my observations. Example: > Who was the market for the original telephone/telegraph Gee ... um ... I don't know. Everybody in the world who thought it would be more convenient to get instant verbal communication over a letter that took weeks or months to deliver/respond to? Let me put it another way. Pierre Omidyar is a technical guy, and more specifically a programmer. Did he choose to develop something that solved an obscure technical challenge, the goal of which was to be published in some computer science journal with a subscription base of 12 people? No. He had a rare abililty of having both the technical talent and being able to think from the perspective of the general population. Hence someone like him would be an exception to what I said I've observed. But for everyone like him that can be cited, I can introduce you to 20 programmers that are trying to start startups around "challenges" so specialized and irrelevant-in-the-scheme-of-things that I know for sure they did zero market research before starting or even during. Sure, lots of things that seemed like a waste turned out to be very useful with the benefit of an unexpected consequence coupled with unpredictable developments and the benefit of hindsight. In general, though, I'd prefer to start with "what's needed" and try to come up with a technical solution as simple as possible rather than "what's the coolest thing I could work on technically" and then spend time on that only to find out that 5 people in the world would actually buy it.
        aswanson 19y ago
        I agree with you that most technical people value triumph over technical challenges more than economic worth. I suffered from an acute case of this disease for many years. Perspective is everything when building a startup product. A user doesn't give a damn about a language or methodology, they just want a need solved.
- NSX2 19y ago
  No, I mean just Google. Apple in my mind = present an OS GUI according to the needs of the human brain. A lot more than 6 people were/are/will be interested in that. Microsoft = make big business computer functions possible on the home computer (at least originally). Apparently more than 6 people were interested in that. Yahoo's proposition originally = the world wibe web is taking off exponentially and you need some sort of list or something to keep track of all the interesting stuff that keeps popping up. Again, more than 6 people were/are interested in that. So, only Google. And truth be said, even Google doesn't count that much since from my understanding Google was just living off of angel/VC funding for a few years until a biz-dev V.P. came up with the idea to tie search results to paid advertising as text on the side. Without what became adwords, Google would have just stayed an interesting technical solution. Had that V.P. kept his mouth shut and left, secured VC backing based on his cred as an exec in a KP/Seq-backed venture and started his own search engine based on his adwords idea, I suspect he'd be the billionaire and "google" would have turned out to be a startup his subesquent company bought and absorbed.
  - aneesh 19y ago
    Microsoft is actually more B2B than B2C. And yeah, Yahoo! was just making a list of links - hardly a challenging technical problem, but people wanted it.
    - NSX2 19y ago
      That's my point exactly. They focused on what people wanted more than a challenging technical problem. That makes them the exception to most programmers I've come across who are fascinated with technical challenges so obscure the resolution of which nobody cares about. In academia, that's respectable and commendable. In business ... nobody cares.
      - wumi 19y ago
        "But most programmers, if they're anything like the ones I've come across, would consider that "below them" and instead favor a startup working on some obscure problem that 6 people on the planet could understand and appreciate." Do you realize you're arguing with yourself? The 6 people argument was presented by you, and you're challenging other people based on that.
mixmax 19y ago
I think you have a good point there. I've met a lot of developers that would think that something wasn't worth doing because it was easy to do. But hard doesn't mean that more people will want it. Look at all the dating sites out there: Simple to do, but absolutely something people want.
- NSX2 19y ago
  Thank you. Sometimes speaking with some of the programmers I have I suspect they think they're doing a startup, but in reality they're doing an extension of their academic programme and just secretly hoping that somehow they'll wind up making money off it. I just can't understand why programmers are so reluctant to work on challenges with people from different perspectives. My background is in economics. I can't stand lawyers and I can't stand psychiatrists and I don't care enough about neurologists and neuro-scientists to figure out what the difference is. And yet over the last 10 years, the mixing of people of these seemingly unrelated backgrounds has given the world 2 of the most useful applications of economics: Law & Economics and Neuro-Economics. Fascinating and practical. Who knew? Why can't all fields be like that, faster? That's why ultimately I can't respect the programming ethos, as I've seen it, too much. Any true professional ... or academic "seeker of knowledge" ... should, IMHO seek continous improvement - bot vertical in terms of skill in their own field AND horizontal in terms of different perspectives. Why does everyone respect Da Vinci so much, but nobody seems to want to emulate his methods?
  - ph0rque 19y ago
    So, are you taking your own advice and learning how to program?
    - NSX2 19y ago
      Actually I taught myself how to program to a limited extent as an undergrad when I needed help from a professor to complete an independent study course and he agreed to help me if I learned enough MatLab and Mathematica to manipulate data as he suggested. Our computer lab had nothing other than this mammoth book of "examples of code of stuff some people have figured out to do" ... but with no actual explanation of what code did what - just result, and accompanying code. I learned enough to get what I wanted done. From that experience I learned that: (1) I barely have the temperment to review my own code, let alone rework other people's work, so as a career choice it was not for me to be a programmer and (2) coupled with my economic background I learned that, intellectual stimulation aside, as a practical matter there was no way I could ever teach myself everything I needed to know in a timely manner to do everything myself, so it would be more useful if I could learn to put my ego aside and seek different people with different skills sets and work together to solve problems. So, from an intellectual point, yes. From a practical point, that would be a waste of time.

by NSX2 19y ago

pg 19y ago

Google aside, that rarely translates into "great business". I think you mean Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo aside.

aswanson 19y ago
Throw in Intel, AT&T, and all the early transistor companies for good measure.
- NSX2 19y ago
  AT&T is too broad and I don't know what you mean specifically, but from a common-sense business perpective, the problem Intel works on is "how to keep making smaller faster better processors" and I think again that's another idea that, technical though it may be, captures the interest of way more than 6 people.
  - aswanson 19y ago
    Who was the market for the original telephone/telegraph, who was the market for the original transistor or microprocessor? Whose interest did those things capture initially outside of a small group of technical people? Were they built and people just lined up outside of Walmart to buy them?
    - NSX2 19y ago
      What does this have to do with programmers? Aside from the fact that I'm talking about programmers and you're extending this to include "all technically-minded people everywhere", in general you're citing exceptions to my observations. Example: > Who was the market for the original telephone/telegraph Gee ... um ... I don't know. Everybody in the world who thought it would be more convenient to get instant verbal communication over a letter that took weeks or months to deliver/respond to? Let me put it another way. Pierre Omidyar is a technical guy, and more specifically a programmer. Did he choose to develop something that solved an obscure technical challenge, the goal of which was to be published in some computer science journal with a subscription base of 12 people? No. He had a rare abililty of having both the technical talent and being able to think from the perspective of the general population. Hence someone like him would be an exception to what I said I've observed. But for everyone like him that can be cited, I can introduce you to 20 programmers that are trying to start startups around "challenges" so specialized and irrelevant-in-the-scheme-of-things that I know for sure they did zero market research before starting or even during. Sure, lots of things that seemed like a waste turned out to be very useful with the benefit of an unexpected consequence coupled with unpredictable developments and the benefit of hindsight. In general, though, I'd prefer to start with "what's needed" and try to come up with a technical solution as simple as possible rather than "what's the coolest thing I could work on technically" and then spend time on that only to find out that 5 people in the world would actually buy it.
      - aswanson 19y ago
        I agree with you that most technical people value triumph over technical challenges more than economic worth. I suffered from an acute case of this disease for many years. Perspective is everything when building a startup product. A user doesn't give a damn about a language or methodology, they just want a need solved.
NSX2 19y ago
No, I mean just Google. Apple in my mind = present an OS GUI according to the needs of the human brain. A lot more than 6 people were/are/will be interested in that. Microsoft = make big business computer functions possible on the home computer (at least originally). Apparently more than 6 people were interested in that. Yahoo's proposition originally = the world wibe web is taking off exponentially and you need some sort of list or something to keep track of all the interesting stuff that keeps popping up. Again, more than 6 people were/are interested in that. So, only Google. And truth be said, even Google doesn't count that much since from my understanding Google was just living off of angel/VC funding for a few years until a biz-dev V.P. came up with the idea to tie search results to paid advertising as text on the side. Without what became adwords, Google would have just stayed an interesting technical solution. Had that V.P. kept his mouth shut and left, secured VC backing based on his cred as an exec in a KP/Seq-backed venture and started his own search engine based on his adwords idea, I suspect he'd be the billionaire and "google" would have turned out to be a startup his subesquent company bought and absorbed.
- aneesh 19y ago
  Microsoft is actually more B2B than B2C. And yeah, Yahoo! was just making a list of links - hardly a challenging technical problem, but people wanted it.
  - NSX2 19y ago
    That's my point exactly. They focused on what people wanted more than a challenging technical problem. That makes them the exception to most programmers I've come across who are fascinated with technical challenges so obscure the resolution of which nobody cares about. In academia, that's respectable and commendable. In business ... nobody cares.
    - wumi 19y ago
      "But most programmers, if they're anything like the ones I've come across, would consider that "below them" and instead favor a startup working on some obscure problem that 6 people on the planet could understand and appreciate." Do you realize you're arguing with yourself? The 6 people argument was presented by you, and you're challenging other people based on that.

mixmax 19y ago

I think you have a good point there. I've met a lot of developers that would think that something wasn't worth doing because it was easy to do. But hard doesn't mean that more people will want it. Look at all the dating sites out there: Simple to do, but absolutely something people want.

NSX2 19y ago
Thank you. Sometimes speaking with some of the programmers I have I suspect they think they're doing a startup, but in reality they're doing an extension of their academic programme and just secretly hoping that somehow they'll wind up making money off it. I just can't understand why programmers are so reluctant to work on challenges with people from different perspectives. My background is in economics. I can't stand lawyers and I can't stand psychiatrists and I don't care enough about neurologists and neuro-scientists to figure out what the difference is. And yet over the last 10 years, the mixing of people of these seemingly unrelated backgrounds has given the world 2 of the most useful applications of economics: Law & Economics and Neuro-Economics. Fascinating and practical. Who knew? Why can't all fields be like that, faster? That's why ultimately I can't respect the programming ethos, as I've seen it, too much. Any true professional ... or academic "seeker of knowledge" ... should, IMHO seek continous improvement - bot vertical in terms of skill in their own field AND horizontal in terms of different perspectives. Why does everyone respect Da Vinci so much, but nobody seems to want to emulate his methods?
- ph0rque 19y ago
  So, are you taking your own advice and learning how to program?
  - NSX2 19y ago
    Actually I taught myself how to program to a limited extent as an undergrad when I needed help from a professor to complete an independent study course and he agreed to help me if I learned enough MatLab and Mathematica to manipulate data as he suggested. Our computer lab had nothing other than this mammoth book of "examples of code of stuff some people have figured out to do" ... but with no actual explanation of what code did what - just result, and accompanying code. I learned enough to get what I wanted done. From that experience I learned that: (1) I barely have the temperment to review my own code, let alone rework other people's work, so as a career choice it was not for me to be a programmer and (2) coupled with my economic background I learned that, intellectual stimulation aside, as a practical matter there was no way I could ever teach myself everything I needed to know in a timely manner to do everything myself, so it would be more useful if I could learn to put my ego aside and seek different people with different skills sets and work together to solve problems. So, from an intellectual point, yes. From a practical point, that would be a waste of time.