7 ms·

Whartonite Seeks Code Monkey

97 points by jamesjyu 16y ago

samtp 16y ago
> The discovery paved the way for industry-wide recalculations of early termination fees for smartphones, which were hiked up nationwide from the standard money-losing $175 to the current break-even $325. If thats something you brag about, you're a cunt of the highest order.
- qq66 16y ago
  Why? An early termination fee is necessary in a model where carriers subsidize handsets. Why should the termination fee be below breakeven?
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    Who brags about making everyone's lives suck just a little bit more?
    - sokoloff 16y ago
      Getting the termination fees raised to break-even does not make everyone's life suck more. The alternative is to have that $150 increment added to the handset purchase price, which is closer to making everyone's life suck more. There's no free lunch. Somehow you're going to pay the full price for your iPhone. The higher monthly bill and higher early termination fee you're willing to pay, the lower the upfront cost can be, which some would argue is making people's lives better, not worse. I would personally prefer to buy an unsubsidized phone (and have correspondingly lower monthly bills, and a tiny or zero early-term fee), but that's not how the US mobile market works, at least not for the device I prefer, and choice of device is more important to me than choice of contract terms.
      - sqrt17 16y ago
        Why would it make people's lives worse to have price transparency both on devices and on mobile phone contracts? Around here (i.e. Europe), you can get an iPhone 4 (24x25EUR) and the corresponding phone contract (20EUR/month), either together (which would give the well-known 45EUR/month) or separately from each other. You can cancel or change the phone contract later and only pay for the phone, if you want - in any case, you know which is which, and it makes it a lot easier to compare both contracts and device prices. No early termination fees necessary. It's just the US mobile market being bogged down from being under the control of an oligopoly of non-competitive companies.
    - jarek 16y ago
      When you buy a subsidized phone, you enter a contract. When you break the contract, your life might suck.
dotBen 16y ago
Anyone know if these are real or satirical?
- kajecounterhack 16y ago
  Definitely satirical. At least, that's what the snarky post titles are telling me.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- dangrossman 16y ago
  They look real job/partner postings to me. Wharton is the business school of University of Pennsylvania.
- nadam 16y ago
  The body of the messages seem to be (excerpts of) real job postings, but the titles are of course made up by the editor of this satirical site.
- chesspro 16y ago
  These postings are real. I can confirm that I've seen some of these emails in person from Penn.
geuis 16y ago
I don't understand what this is.
- dangrossman 16y ago
  A tumblr making fun of job/partner postings by business students. Wharton is the business school of University of Pennsylvania, one of the most prestigious business schools in the country.
  - MrFlibble 16y ago
    Wharton is largely populated by entitled douchebags. Not entirely, but largely. I was invited to a dinner once where a bunch of Whartonites made up the body of the group. They really thought they were the future gods of industry and knew everything about business (mind you they were playing on daddy's money). When the check came they suggested we play "Credit card roulette" to see who covered the bill. I don't think my hearty "go fuck yourselves" was appreciated. These are the same assholes whose arrogance helped crash the market.
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
      Who doesn't love spending other people's money?
    - ebaysucks 16y ago
      As a former strategy consultant who decided not to go the MBA route because it's bullshit, I want to point out there are plenty of people who end up in these top MBA programs after working a few years in consulting or banking. The family net worth does not come into the equation at all for most. One of my former coworkers was an Indian guy who used to be homeless as a kid. Can't get much more NOT coming from money than that.
    - bayes 16y ago
      I don't see why you had to be so rude to them, just because customs in their circle are different to your own. A simple "You go ahead, I'm just going to pay for my own" would have sufficed.
potatolicious 16y ago
To turn this topic in a more positive direction: How do you tell an "I have the next big thing but just need some help with technical details" people apart from real, talented non-technicals? Or, as a non-technical founder, how do you differentiate yourself from the 99% of clueless yahoos run around pitching their Great Big Idea?
- spitfire 16y ago
  Have money. Tell them you're building a team to do X, and you're not looking for free labour.
  - MrFlibble 16y ago
    I agree. As a non-technical founder my main focus is on that initial capital raise to be adequately funded to build a solid team and pay them what they're worth. You wouldn't ask a mechanic to rebuild your engine for equity in your car when you eventually sell it, neither should you expect coders to work for free.
    - jessedhillon 16y ago
      Your car will definitely be losing value in the future. A better analogy is that you might ask your friend the electrician to help you out with a house you're fixing up and getting ready to flip, with the promise that you would pay his bill after the sale. Plus maybe a bonus. I think there's a lot of value involved in being able to convince people to contribute some level of effort for equity. If intelligent people see enough in your idea to jump in your boat, that might mean something about the value of your idea. The converse is also true: if you can't convince anyone to contribute anything of value to your effort in exchange for equity, maybe you don't have a compelling idea. A real entrepreneur doesn't expect coders to work for free. He or she is that pitching a compelling vision that involves a coder adding value to something that the programmer co-owns, not simply giving away free time.
      - potatolicious 16y ago
lionhearted 16y ago
You know, there actually is a lot of value in good business people. Problem is, it's really tough to identify someone who can do business and someone who can talk but can't. I think about this a lot. I'm now thinking the fastest way to figure it out is (tactfully) ask them how much money they've stacked up in various endeavors. The university teaches a lot of things, but those don't necessarily translate into stacking up money. If you're technical and want a business guy, figure out if he can stack up money. A pretty good predictor of that is how much money he's stacked up in the past.
- baguasquirrel 16y ago
  Stacked up money for himself? For the company? For the company for a few quarters? I agree with you, definitely. Finding good business folks is as hard as finding good programmers. Really damn hard.
  - lionhearted 16y ago
    > Stacked up money for himself? For the company? For the company for a few quarters? I was thinking in an entrepreneurial/self-employed/self-directed/sales context... funny, I didn't even think about someone who did it on a corporate level. No information is perfect for decisionmaking, but the closer the past success is to what you're looking to do, the better. That said, I've found some people just have a knack for getting money, and it's good to work with those people. As a side note, I was just reading this earlier - I'd recommend it, there's a whole education in here on having a knack for getting money if you read it slowly and think through it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent#Non-musical_projects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent#Non-musical_projects
    - Natsu 16y ago
      Did I read that right? Did he really win a lawsuit against Taco Bell for them selling food for using his name? One would think that selling "50 cent tacos" wouldn't cause undue confusion, but....
shiftb 16y ago
As a coder, I've historically tended to think poorly of non-technical people who have the "next big idea". The truth is that a really great business person with the right skills can be immensely important! I didn't fully understand that until this last year between meeting some hustlers on the Startup Bus and my coworkers at my last startup. The real problem is separating the hustlers from the blowhards. In my experience, they land in 2 camps. 1) Hustlers - They will make something happen w/o you. They'll put up a splash page or a wufoo form or something to get things started. They'll be actively working on their idea, even if it's just prototyping things on paper. 2) Blowhards - These guys are just waiting around for you to join to do the work. They usually have an inflated sense of importance (about themselves and their idea). They also tend to think you're lucky to work with them. It's the latter type this site is making fun of. The former are the people you want to work with, and are super valuable.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  > "The former are the people you want to work with, and are super valuable." Some of the former you want to work with. A technical founder has something obvious they're bringing to the table - i.e., the ability to implement the systems that will enable the idea. What a non-technical guy brings to the table, if anything, is more complex. Does he have insider knowledge or networks in the field you're breaking into? Does he have some skillset (say, SEO, real marketing prowess, etc) that will concretely help the business launch? Having an idea is fine. Having the hustle and enthusiasm to carry the idea is fine. The problem here is that, even when you exclude the blowhards, there are a lot of non-technical people who have the motivation and enthusiasm - but honestly simply don't bring much of value to the table. Not sufficient to warrant co-founder equity anyways.
  - farout 16y ago
    Ok, while we are at it here is my beef: 1. technical cofounders - they just want to play around. You tell them the users are satisfied with the current search engine,that we need to make it easier for people to enter info in so that app can be more useful. Crickets. Nothing happens. Hey look, we tried out 3 new search engine. Thanks. I am sick of tech folks that don't want to do what needs to be done because it is not sexy. 2. non-tech folks. Networking is fine. But you need to hustle that means try out lots of ideas to try to get "top of the mind" awareness from "your ideal customer profile". This means lots of grunt work. Think of ideas and execute them. But noooo. It's all about people you know, some of it is. Sure. Noooo. It' all about perception. Come on, some of it has to be that our product actually does something useful for them. Bottomline: depending on the product are we in "demand harvest" or "demand generation" mode. No we are in "perception" mode so we can be bought out. Our customer is the company buying us. Screw the users. Their stupidity for doing business with us. And some marketing people - are a waste of space. Everything is outsourced. They are glorified yes men to the CEO. Sales repeatedly asks for collateral. Screwed it I will make my own. I agree that we need to target strategic customers. They are the hubs that will virally promote our products. Nope. We need customers with big names so the companies that are thinking of buying us will think we own the space. My background: EE, stats, sales, sys admin, dba, programmer. And I agree the hardest one to learn was graphics and design.
benreesman 16y ago
the satire is apt, in the sense that folks have been known to talk like this. what intrigues me is why anyone who was lukewarm on technology would hang out in software circles. this shit is hard. really hard and it just gets harder the more you learn. there must be easier money lying around for that crowd.
- Vivtek 16y ago
  They all think Google and Facebook are the norm.
nika 16y ago
I know the site is a joke but there is a real disconnect. There is this idea of a "business person" in a startup. But I think everyone serious enough about startups to be on HN, if you'll think about it, will realize there is no "business dude" role in a startup. You're either engineering, design or marketing, and preferably more than one. My background is in engineering, which means I didn't have much need to pick up design, marketing, or entrepreneurial/business skills while growing up. Once I realized I wanted to work for startups (about a decade before founding my first startup) I started learning about these things. Design, as in graphic design, is probably the hardest to teach. Business is the easiest. If your background is you got a BS in "Business" or an MBA and you want to be in startups, then you should figure out what role you're going to play. (And it shouldn't be "CEO".) Pick up some engineering, design or marketing. Show me someone who designed and marketed several extremely popular websites when they were in college, say, along with a technical buddy who made them, and I'll see someone who can greatly benefit a startup (whether their degree is an MBA or a BS in art appreciation.) Eventually if your startup gets big enough, or for some business models (eg: Groupon) you may need large numbers of sales guys or "Bizdev". Well, "BizDev" is just sales to other businesses where you sell a partnership. Sales guys sink or swim on bringing in business, and I think nothing will kill the "whartonite" sense of entitlement more than working on a commission. Much respect to sales guys, though. I have done that job because I knew I'd never be able to hire a sales force if I hadn't ever done the job. It is not easy. So, Engineering, Design, Marketing. Which hat do you wear?
- meterplech 16y ago
  I think many people conflate BisDev and Sales too much. Most people in tech have an idea of a Sales guy: the ultimate closer, knows everyone, eats rejection for breakfast. A great sales guy is one of the best assets in a tech startup. That being said, a BizDev person normally is thinking strategically about the company's position as a whole. He is gaining deep knowledge in new verticals and identifying the right companies to target. It's usually a big picture type person. I think the best in this position truly understand the tech involved in the company.
  - cosgroveb 16y ago
nika 16y ago
Also, a suggestion for non-technical cofounders: Do not tell us a list of technologies that you think we need in order to cofound a company with you. (I've seen this happen a lot.) If you think your technical cofounder needs [java/php/rails/javascript] experience, then you're starting off attempting to dictate technology to the person who you're supposed to go to in order to discover what the right technology is.
- MrFlibble 16y ago
  The wise man (or woman) partners with someone who is skilled at what they do then stays the hell out of the way and lets them do it.
ActiveIndian 16y ago
Wow, quite beautifully executed... lol, I have been in functional in almost all the three roles from Geekdom to Designer to my current assignments i.e. Strategy and Sales. All of them great experience. But the way these have depicted all this, is really funny. I was thinking about an entrepreneurial/self-employed/self-directed/sales context... funny, I didn't even think about someone who did it on a corporate level.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
yef 16y ago
These are biz noobs. There are good ones too who understand talent and startups. We can make fun of the arrogant noobs, but we'd all benefit if they were just enlightened about the shortage of tech talent, and about the best way to sell their idea and build a team.
rwebb 16y ago
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/eng/2195882661.html http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/eng/2195882661.html
sixtypoundhound 16y ago
Brilliant satire....reminds me of my pet peeve - "analysts" who are unwilling to pull and QA data.... when I started in analytics 15 years ago that WAS the path ... you either pulled data or got a job in PR. The irony is that most of these guys have the intellectual horsepower to learn enough coding to crank version 1.0 in about 90% of the likely startup spaces out there. Speaking as a business guy from a similar school who started refreshing his own tech skills a couple years ago to reach "tech ceo" level competency (can personally deliver a simple app or feature, understands dev and support process, has a clue about design and project tradeoffs, can size up technical talent), these guys have the capabilty.....just being lazy weasels... By the way, anyone at a startup who considers himself a ceo is seriously delusional.... You are a CEO in training at best. Call yourself a founder and move past it. Get cash flow positive and create 50 - 100 jobs and you can reconsider...

97 points by jamesjyu 16y ago

samtp 16y ago

> The discovery paved the way for industry-wide recalculations of early termination fees for smartphones, which were hiked up nationwide from the standard money-losing $175 to the current break-even $325. If thats something you brag about, you're a cunt of the highest order.

qq66 16y ago
Why? An early termination fee is necessary in a model where carriers subsidize handsets. Why should the termination fee be below breakeven?
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  Who brags about making everyone's lives suck just a little bit more?
  - sokoloff 16y ago
    Getting the termination fees raised to break-even does not make everyone's life suck more. The alternative is to have that $150 increment added to the handset purchase price, which is closer to making everyone's life suck more. There's no free lunch. Somehow you're going to pay the full price for your iPhone. The higher monthly bill and higher early termination fee you're willing to pay, the lower the upfront cost can be, which some would argue is making people's lives better, not worse. I would personally prefer to buy an unsubsidized phone (and have correspondingly lower monthly bills, and a tiny or zero early-term fee), but that's not how the US mobile market works, at least not for the device I prefer, and choice of device is more important to me than choice of contract terms.
    - sqrt17 16y ago
      Why would it make people's lives worse to have price transparency both on devices and on mobile phone contracts? Around here (i.e. Europe), you can get an iPhone 4 (24x25EUR) and the corresponding phone contract (20EUR/month), either together (which would give the well-known 45EUR/month) or separately from each other. You can cancel or change the phone contract later and only pay for the phone, if you want - in any case, you know which is which, and it makes it a lot easier to compare both contracts and device prices. No early termination fees necessary. It's just the US mobile market being bogged down from being under the control of an oligopoly of non-competitive companies.
  - jarek 16y ago
    When you buy a subsidized phone, you enter a contract. When you break the contract, your life might suck.

dotBen 16y ago

Anyone know if these are real or satirical?

kajecounterhack 16y ago
Definitely satirical. At least, that's what the snarky post titles are telling me.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
dangrossman 16y ago
They look real job/partner postings to me. Wharton is the business school of University of Pennsylvania.
nadam 16y ago
The body of the messages seem to be (excerpts of) real job postings, but the titles are of course made up by the editor of this satirical site.
chesspro 16y ago
These postings are real. I can confirm that I've seen some of these emails in person from Penn.

geuis 16y ago

I don't understand what this is.

dangrossman 16y ago
A tumblr making fun of job/partner postings by business students. Wharton is the business school of University of Pennsylvania, one of the most prestigious business schools in the country.
- MrFlibble 16y ago
  Wharton is largely populated by entitled douchebags. Not entirely, but largely. I was invited to a dinner once where a bunch of Whartonites made up the body of the group. They really thought they were the future gods of industry and knew everything about business (mind you they were playing on daddy's money). When the check came they suggested we play "Credit card roulette" to see who covered the bill. I don't think my hearty "go fuck yourselves" was appreciated. These are the same assholes whose arrogance helped crash the market.
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    Who doesn't love spending other people's money?
  - ebaysucks 16y ago
    As a former strategy consultant who decided not to go the MBA route because it's bullshit, I want to point out there are plenty of people who end up in these top MBA programs after working a few years in consulting or banking. The family net worth does not come into the equation at all for most. One of my former coworkers was an Indian guy who used to be homeless as a kid. Can't get much more NOT coming from money than that.
  - bayes 16y ago
    I don't see why you had to be so rude to them, just because customs in their circle are different to your own. A simple "You go ahead, I'm just going to pay for my own" would have sufficed.

potatolicious 16y ago

To turn this topic in a more positive direction: How do you tell an "I have the next big thing but just need some help with technical details" people apart from real, talented non-technicals? Or, as a non-technical founder, how do you differentiate yourself from the 99% of clueless yahoos run around pitching their Great Big Idea?

spitfire 16y ago
Have money. Tell them you're building a team to do X, and you're not looking for free labour.
- MrFlibble 16y ago
  I agree. As a non-technical founder my main focus is on that initial capital raise to be adequately funded to build a solid team and pay them what they're worth. You wouldn't ask a mechanic to rebuild your engine for equity in your car when you eventually sell it, neither should you expect coders to work for free.
  - jessedhillon 16y ago
    Your car will definitely be losing value in the future. A better analogy is that you might ask your friend the electrician to help you out with a house you're fixing up and getting ready to flip, with the promise that you would pay his bill after the sale. Plus maybe a bonus. I think there's a lot of value involved in being able to convince people to contribute some level of effort for equity. If intelligent people see enough in your idea to jump in your boat, that might mean something about the value of your idea. The converse is also true: if you can't convince anyone to contribute anything of value to your effort in exchange for equity, maybe you don't have a compelling idea. A real entrepreneur doesn't expect coders to work for free. He or she is that pitching a compelling vision that involves a coder adding value to something that the programmer co-owns, not simply giving away free time.
    - potatolicious 16y ago

lionhearted 16y ago

You know, there actually is a lot of value in good business people. Problem is, it's really tough to identify someone who can do business and someone who can talk but can't. I think about this a lot. I'm now thinking the fastest way to figure it out is (tactfully) ask them how much money they've stacked up in various endeavors. The university teaches a lot of things, but those don't necessarily translate into stacking up money. If you're technical and want a business guy, figure out if he can stack up money. A pretty good predictor of that is how much money he's stacked up in the past.

baguasquirrel 16y ago
Stacked up money for himself? For the company? For the company for a few quarters? I agree with you, definitely. Finding good business folks is as hard as finding good programmers. Really damn hard.
- lionhearted 16y ago
  > Stacked up money for himself? For the company? For the company for a few quarters? I was thinking in an entrepreneurial/self-employed/self-directed/sales context... funny, I didn't even think about someone who did it on a corporate level. No information is perfect for decisionmaking, but the closer the past success is to what you're looking to do, the better. That said, I've found some people just have a knack for getting money, and it's good to work with those people. As a side note, I was just reading this earlier - I'd recommend it, there's a whole education in here on having a knack for getting money if you read it slowly and think through it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent#Non-musical_projects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent#Non-musical_projects
  - Natsu 16y ago
    Did I read that right? Did he really win a lawsuit against Taco Bell for them selling food for using his name? One would think that selling "50 cent tacos" wouldn't cause undue confusion, but....

shiftb 16y ago

As a coder, I've historically tended to think poorly of non-technical people who have the "next big idea". The truth is that a really great business person with the right skills can be immensely important! I didn't fully understand that until this last year between meeting some hustlers on the Startup Bus and my coworkers at my last startup. The real problem is separating the hustlers from the blowhards. In my experience, they land in 2 camps. 1) Hustlers - They will make something happen w/o you. They'll put up a splash page or a wufoo form or something to get things started. They'll be actively working on their idea, even if it's just prototyping things on paper. 2) Blowhards - These guys are just waiting around for you to join to do the work. They usually have an inflated sense of importance (about themselves and their idea). They also tend to think you're lucky to work with them. It's the latter type this site is making fun of. The former are the people you want to work with, and are super valuable.

potatolicious 16y ago
> "The former are the people you want to work with, and are super valuable." Some of the former you want to work with. A technical founder has something obvious they're bringing to the table - i.e., the ability to implement the systems that will enable the idea. What a non-technical guy brings to the table, if anything, is more complex. Does he have insider knowledge or networks in the field you're breaking into? Does he have some skillset (say, SEO, real marketing prowess, etc) that will concretely help the business launch? Having an idea is fine. Having the hustle and enthusiasm to carry the idea is fine. The problem here is that, even when you exclude the blowhards, there are a lot of non-technical people who have the motivation and enthusiasm - but honestly simply don't bring much of value to the table. Not sufficient to warrant co-founder equity anyways.
- farout 16y ago
  Ok, while we are at it here is my beef: 1. technical cofounders - they just want to play around. You tell them the users are satisfied with the current search engine,that we need to make it easier for people to enter info in so that app can be more useful. Crickets. Nothing happens. Hey look, we tried out 3 new search engine. Thanks. I am sick of tech folks that don't want to do what needs to be done because it is not sexy. 2. non-tech folks. Networking is fine. But you need to hustle that means try out lots of ideas to try to get "top of the mind" awareness from "your ideal customer profile". This means lots of grunt work. Think of ideas and execute them. But noooo. It's all about people you know, some of it is. Sure. Noooo. It' all about perception. Come on, some of it has to be that our product actually does something useful for them. Bottomline: depending on the product are we in "demand harvest" or "demand generation" mode. No we are in "perception" mode so we can be bought out. Our customer is the company buying us. Screw the users. Their stupidity for doing business with us. And some marketing people - are a waste of space. Everything is outsourced. They are glorified yes men to the CEO. Sales repeatedly asks for collateral. Screwed it I will make my own. I agree that we need to target strategic customers. They are the hubs that will virally promote our products. Nope. We need customers with big names so the companies that are thinking of buying us will think we own the space. My background: EE, stats, sales, sys admin, dba, programmer. And I agree the hardest one to learn was graphics and design.

benreesman 16y ago

the satire is apt, in the sense that folks have been known to talk like this. what intrigues me is why anyone who was lukewarm on technology would hang out in software circles. this shit is hard. really hard and it just gets harder the more you learn. there must be easier money lying around for that crowd.

Vivtek 16y ago
They all think Google and Facebook are the norm.

nika 16y ago

I know the site is a joke but there is a real disconnect. There is this idea of a "business person" in a startup. But I think everyone serious enough about startups to be on HN, if you'll think about it, will realize there is no "business dude" role in a startup. You're either engineering, design or marketing, and preferably more than one. My background is in engineering, which means I didn't have much need to pick up design, marketing, or entrepreneurial/business skills while growing up. Once I realized I wanted to work for startups (about a decade before founding my first startup) I started learning about these things. Design, as in graphic design, is probably the hardest to teach. Business is the easiest. If your background is you got a BS in "Business" or an MBA and you want to be in startups, then you should figure out what role you're going to play. (And it shouldn't be "CEO".) Pick up some engineering, design or marketing. Show me someone who designed and marketed several extremely popular websites when they were in college, say, along with a technical buddy who made them, and I'll see someone who can greatly benefit a startup (whether their degree is an MBA or a BS in art appreciation.) Eventually if your startup gets big enough, or for some business models (eg: Groupon) you may need large numbers of sales guys or "Bizdev". Well, "BizDev" is just sales to other businesses where you sell a partnership. Sales guys sink or swim on bringing in business, and I think nothing will kill the "whartonite" sense of entitlement more than working on a commission. Much respect to sales guys, though. I have done that job because I knew I'd never be able to hire a sales force if I hadn't ever done the job. It is not easy. So, Engineering, Design, Marketing. Which hat do you wear?

meterplech 16y ago
I think many people conflate BisDev and Sales too much. Most people in tech have an idea of a Sales guy: the ultimate closer, knows everyone, eats rejection for breakfast. A great sales guy is one of the best assets in a tech startup. That being said, a BizDev person normally is thinking strategically about the company's position as a whole. He is gaining deep knowledge in new verticals and identifying the right companies to target. It's usually a big picture type person. I think the best in this position truly understand the tech involved in the company.
- cosgroveb 16y ago

nika 16y ago

Also, a suggestion for non-technical cofounders: Do not tell us a list of technologies that you think we need in order to cofound a company with you. (I've seen this happen a lot.) If you think your technical cofounder needs [java/php/rails/javascript] experience, then you're starting off attempting to dictate technology to the person who you're supposed to go to in order to discover what the right technology is.

MrFlibble 16y ago
The wise man (or woman) partners with someone who is skilled at what they do then stays the hell out of the way and lets them do it.

ActiveIndian 16y ago

Wow, quite beautifully executed... lol, I have been in functional in almost all the three roles from Geekdom to Designer to my current assignments i.e. Strategy and Sales. All of them great experience. But the way these have depicted all this, is really funny. I was thinking about an entrepreneurial/self-employed/self-directed/sales context... funny, I didn't even think about someone who did it on a corporate level.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

yef 16y ago

These are biz noobs. There are good ones too who understand talent and startups. We can make fun of the arrogant noobs, but we'd all benefit if they were just enlightened about the shortage of tech talent, and about the best way to sell their idea and build a team.

rwebb 16y ago

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/eng/2195882661.html http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/eng/2195882661.html

sixtypoundhound 16y ago

Brilliant satire....reminds me of my pet peeve - "analysts" who are unwilling to pull and QA data.... when I started in analytics 15 years ago that WAS the path ... you either pulled data or got a job in PR. The irony is that most of these guys have the intellectual horsepower to learn enough coding to crank version 1.0 in about 90% of the likely startup spaces out there. Speaking as a business guy from a similar school who started refreshing his own tech skills a couple years ago to reach "tech ceo" level competency (can personally deliver a simple app or feature, understands dev and support process, has a clue about design and project tradeoffs, can size up technical talent), these guys have the capabilty.....just being lazy weasels... By the way, anyone at a startup who considers himself a ceo is seriously delusional.... You are a CEO in training at best. Call yourself a founder and move past it. Get cash flow positive and create 50 - 100 jobs and you can reconsider...