I'm not a business guy but I've been around a lot of them. Honesty and self-honesty are key. Curiosity too. They best business people tend to teach as they go.

I'm not a business guy but I've been around a lot of them. Honesty and self-honesty are key. Curiosity too. They best business people tend to teach as they go... but the worst like to lecture as they go. So talkativeness is not always a good sign. Greed in a business person is not fatal, but needs to be watched. Hunger is a better motivator than greed because it's self-limiting. Business school is not always a good indicator -- I've met both idiots and geniuses who went to Sloan, LSE, EDHEC, etc. Self-taught or self-made business folk tend to have smaller horizons. You find them a lot in businesses that are less risky, more limited, yet profitable -- eg contract software for government. Scions of old successful (eg 4 generations) families can be very good as long as they are not too emotionally scarred. If they have something to prove, let them do it somewhere else. People who have entrepreneurs (parents, aunts, etc) in the family tend to have more natural and secure approach to business overall. They've seen it done from birth. One good negative indicator is being too "fancy". If a person seems to create complex deals just for the joy of it, run away. You want elegant power in business deals just as you want it in programming. Being too fancy is a sign of inexperience, but may also be a sign of greed or worse. Another negative indicator: I've never seen a VC make an outstanding CEO.