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The critical skill for creating value is understanding the customer PLUS the 80/20 rule of software development. A creative technical guy can come with an elega
by paulsutter 15y ago
The critical skill for creating value is understanding the customer PLUS the 80/20 rule of software development. A creative technical guy can come with an elegant MVP if and only if he is attuned to real users.
This will be even more true in 2016 than in 2012.
A nontechnical MBA is just blocked from this insight. And a great algorithm guy who is tone deaf to users is likewise blocked. Even together, they are handicapped compared to the guy who sees both sides.
The most powerful problem solving of all is a group of people who can see both sides. Pud's thread about 400K users and what to do next was stunningly wonderful to me. You don't see that on stack overflow and you don't see that in the Harvard Business Review. You see it here on Hacker News.