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The entire post was a satirical response to the GP comment. It was meant to show how, depending on your point of view, the same logic can be applied to either t

The entire post was a satirical response to the GP comment. It was meant to show how, depending on your point of view, the same logic can be applied to either the tech or the business side and maybe even "look good" but seem unreasonable to those on the other side of the table. Not saying I am in full agreement, but it's pretty clearly the purpose of the parent comment.

hosh 14y ago
Except that it is possible to hack together something in 24 - 48 hours, or a week, assuming you are willing to pare it down to essentials and fake parts of the demo. Satire aside, it's enough to make me wonder if talking to 500 people is as trivial as setting up a twitter account. Setting up a twitter account or a C Corp is really not that hard to do.
cstejerean 14y ago
I had a feeling that might be the case when I started reading about the 500 people in one day bit. The second half however, about assessing whether the future technical co-founder can actually build a prototype over a weekend, seems like reasonable advice. Programmers aren't immune from overestimating their competency, and if you are about to get into a venture with someone you don't know well, I think it makes sense for both sides to do some due diligence.
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  >Programmers aren't immune from overestimating their competency I would actually phrase it differently: programmers quite often overestimate their competency. I am not sure if it is unique to programmers or just an instance of the general inability to objectively analyze ourselves, but I do notice that the vast majority of programmers I have met (myself included :)) have a tendency to consider ourselves a smidge more capable than we actually may be from a purely objective standpoint. Then again the stretching is what grows great developers, so that overestimation that spurs you into attempting things just outside your current grasp is probably a net positive.
  - dasil003 14y ago
    The reason is because the skill appears as magic to others, whereas business skills are something that anyone can at least imagine themselves doing. This is completely orthogonal from how difficult these jobs may be under varying circumstances.

hosh 14y ago

Except that it is possible to hack together something in 24 - 48 hours, or a week, assuming you are willing to pare it down to essentials and fake parts of the demo. Satire aside, it's enough to make me wonder if talking to 500 people is as trivial as setting up a twitter account. Setting up a twitter account or a C Corp is really not that hard to do.

cstejerean 14y ago

I had a feeling that might be the case when I started reading about the 500 people in one day bit. The second half however, about assessing whether the future technical co-founder can actually build a prototype over a weekend, seems like reasonable advice. Programmers aren't immune from overestimating their competency, and if you are about to get into a venture with someone you don't know well, I think it makes sense for both sides to do some due diligence.

ryanmolden 14y ago
>Programmers aren't immune from overestimating their competency I would actually phrase it differently: programmers quite often overestimate their competency. I am not sure if it is unique to programmers or just an instance of the general inability to objectively analyze ourselves, but I do notice that the vast majority of programmers I have met (myself included :)) have a tendency to consider ourselves a smidge more capable than we actually may be from a purely objective standpoint. Then again the stretching is what grows great developers, so that overestimation that spurs you into attempting things just outside your current grasp is probably a net positive.
- dasil003 14y ago
  The reason is because the skill appears as magic to others, whereas business skills are something that anyone can at least imagine themselves doing. This is completely orthogonal from how difficult these jobs may be under varying circumstances.