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Guys, this is satire. It is painful to see people not recognize that. The only thing that made me chuckle is the ironic response from HN, that even after readi

by coryl 16y ago

Guys, this is satire. It is painful to see people not recognize that. The only thing that made me chuckle is the ironic response from HN, that even after reading this hyperbolic parody and not getting it, members still have to validate their ideas of technical > business founders. The motive is so strong it borders on insecurity, I really wonder for those who have replied; which have the real world experience and credibility to suggest so? Here's the truth: it doesn't matter as much as you think. Its like asking, "which martial arts style is better, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu or Muay Thai?". Its an amateur question, childish almost, because you need to know both and should seek to learn every martial art to be a well rounded martial artist. Being open to new ideas means letting go of your ego, a tough thing for anyone, let alone MEN in BUSINESS and ENGINEERING. So as a business person whose learning to be technical, all I can say is that it is not black and white, we are not either team business or team technical. We are all artists, who simply paint the canvas differently.

jedc 16y ago
There are times where I wish HN had a one-time-daily-use +10 vote button, because I would use it here. The post was obviously satire, and I personally thought it well-written and hilarious. Fundamentally, a technical startup needs to eventually master business and engineering. The "which comes first" and "which is more important" are strawman arguments where specifics matter much more than generalizations.
ryanlchan 16y ago
Wow, go to bed for a bit and suddenly HN has a riot. I wrote this post. It is, hopefully, clearly satire. Furthermore ironic due to the fact that I have been, in fact, a technical cofounder. I'm just tired of the overwhelming sentiment on HN that programmers are a business' gift from god, and that all you need to do as a nontechnical cofounder is go read a book. If it was that easy we'd have facebook for cats six times over. Look, there are plenty of good business people out there who don't have the time to create a 14,000 follower blog before they have a product, much like most hackers don't have the time to create full, working products before they have any customers. It's absurd to hold one half of the company to such stringent standards while allowing the other, as a comment so clearly put, to 'code it out of thin air'. I'm tired of the 'Business people should learn how to code' mentality. It's not about technical vs nontechnical. It's about learning to have, and use, both.

by coryl 16y ago

jedc 16y ago

There are times where I wish HN had a one-time-daily-use +10 vote button, because I would use it here. The post was obviously satire, and I personally thought it well-written and hilarious. Fundamentally, a technical startup needs to eventually master business and engineering. The "which comes first" and "which is more important" are strawman arguments where specifics matter much more than generalizations.

ryanlchan 16y ago

Wow, go to bed for a bit and suddenly HN has a riot. I wrote this post. It is, hopefully, clearly satire. Furthermore ironic due to the fact that I have been, in fact, a technical cofounder. I'm just tired of the overwhelming sentiment on HN that programmers are a business' gift from god, and that all you need to do as a nontechnical cofounder is go read a book. If it was that easy we'd have facebook for cats six times over. Look, there are plenty of good business people out there who don't have the time to create a 14,000 follower blog before they have a product, much like most hackers don't have the time to create full, working products before they have any customers. It's absurd to hold one half of the company to such stringent standards while allowing the other, as a comment so clearly put, to 'code it out of thin air'. I'm tired of the 'Business people should learn how to code' mentality. It's not about technical vs nontechnical. It's about learning to have, and use, both.