3 ms·
Not everyone is meant to be or want to be a startup founder either. If you look at the history, most substantial technology innovations are not from startups b
by vicaya 19y ago
Not everyone is meant to be or want to be a startup founder either.
If you look at the history, most substantial technology innovations are not from startups but universities and research labs of large companies.
Startups are more about the right idea (in business sense), the right time and the right place than innovation and quality work. It's more like a monopoly game than truly substantial and creative technical challenges. It attracts more people who think they're good than they're actually good.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirts. For real hackers who're incited/excited by the article to be a "founder", here're a few notes based on real experience:
1. Many top hackers are not interested in and bored by the financial aspect of the business. But you have to learn the basics in order not to be taken advantage of. It's not that hard to crack once you decide to bite the bullet.
2. Pick your business partners carefully. Not just someone who's smart but someone you can trust. To use a cliche, it's a jungle out there, which I could only appreciate after experienced it the first-hand.
3. If you want to go through the Y route, talk to the previous founders (esp. not so successful ones). You learn the most from failures.
4. Make sure you understand and make copies of every thing you sign.
5. Beware of business people who boast photoshop chops.
- LogicHoleFlaw 19y agoI suspect that most good hackers can do well with the financial and legal aspects of a business once they decide that it's an important system to understand. Hacking a contract and hacking code are not all that different in the skills required. Still, having partners you can trust seems very important to me, too. Money can either unite people or tear them apart. You have to know that your partner has got your back.
- vicaya 19y agoThe point is every good hacker doesn't necessarily want to bother with financial/legal aspects of a business, as they're not interesting to them. I know a top hacker who's not only good at system abstractions but also knows bare metal like the back of his hand, debugging live applications with heavy OS interactions by patching running binary on the fly without needing to lookup a reference. Everyone around him is in awe. However, he's not that interested in money. He thinks he's rich enough with a few millions in options and 300k in annual salary & bonuses. And he's happy with his job and his boss, who, like everyone else, respects and pampers him. The big company can give him resources a startup or smaller companies simply cannot afford. Why would such a person do a startup? The original article generalized too much, missing the most significant contributions to the progress of technology from people who _like_ to work in academia and large companies.
- LogicHoleFlaw 19y agoOh, there are absolutely people who are not interested in founding a startup, for many reasons. I'm just trying to say that hackers interested in becoming founders have the skills and hopefully the drive to master the financial and legal aspects. At least enough to avoid some of the major pitfalls. If they aren't willing to face these aspects of founding a business then they should definitely seek some other avenue of fulfillment. I think that hacking is a necessary but not sufficient skill for becoming a successful founder.