I could live with that definition, but I've had 2 partnerships now in 2 different companies where I felt the person had qualified on those grounds and while the

I could live with that definition, but I've had 2 partnerships now in 2 different companies where I felt the person had qualified on those grounds and while they are still great friends etc., I was a bit disappointed. If it is a tech company, I really think they both have to have real tech expertise. It has little to do with just having someone else to do the programming- in both of those partnerships the partner was more than willing to defer to me on all technical matters that they perceived to be technical matters. In a tech company, though, _everything_ is a technical matter- for example- marketing. Early adopters for 99% of tech products are geeks- if you are not one then you do not understand the market (hence all those MBA lead failures of the late 90's). Finance for a tech startup usually has to tie into the product / subscriptions, etc- and is thus a tech problem. PR is to fellow geeks, etc. etc. Then there's the fact that the bulk of the work to be done is technical- if you're going to be having allnighters for the next 3 months getting a product out- there is a _big_ difference between having a partner who is right there with you in the trenches coding across the room, and a partner who comes by every day and says "well, uh, how's it going?"- you spend the next hour trying to explain the latest hangup etc. and then they say "well, let me know if the schedule changes- I've got some great customers lined up..." or whatever. Sometimes that situation is unavoidable, but I guarantee it is not optimal.