Let’s talk about what does work. Assume you are a world-class ‘idea person’. That means that you know everything about your field, but you’re maybe not great a

Let’s talk about what does work. Assume you are a world-class ‘idea person’. That means that you know everything about your field, but you’re maybe not great at the specific skills. You have read everything in the technical literature. You know how your competitors operate and what they are working on. You have deep understanding of the customer. You know exactly why the big idea isn’t already a thing, and why each prior attempt failed. Your job is to help other people organize their thoughts. It’s not to inject your own. Hackers need a lot of support. They need a sounding board to see if the logic make sense or if they are missing something. They might need to identify that one lynchpin problem that needs to be proved before anything else. They might need someone to ask foundational questions about why each component is necessary, or if there is an easier way to achieve the function they they want. They need to know what has been done already. They need to know what has been attempted and failed at, and why. There are a huge number of ways that an ‘idea person’ can contribute. It’s also incredibly annoying and disruptive to push your own ideas on other people, not least because they probably suck, but you knew that, because you are a world-class idea person.