This advice that a successful founder has domain knowledge runs contrary to what's said of PayPal though. From a recent thread in HN: http://primitus.com/blog/

This advice that a successful founder has domain knowledge runs contrary to what's said of PayPal though. From a recent thread in HN: http://primitus.com/blog/why-did-so-many-successful-entrepreneurs-and-startups-come-out-of-paypal-answered-by-insiders/ http://primitus.com/blog/why-did-so-many-successful-entrepre... PayPal had a strong bias toward hiring (and promoting / encouraging, as Keith mentions) smart, driven problem solvers, rather than subject matter experts I doubt there's a hard and fast rule.