While the phrasing seems to be insulting to the demographic that this site cares too, I don't think he is wrong fundamentally. Also note that he is specifically

While the phrasing seems to be insulting to the demographic that this site cares too, I don't think he is wrong fundamentally. Also note that he is specifically talking about programmers doing actual work, not consulting/discussing ideas with programmers. Asking whether this platform idea could ever work is great, getting someone to write a website that gives you X, Y and Z features before you know whether those features are core is bad. Put another way, he is saying to focus on prototyping in the most lean way possible. If Google spreadsheets can work to try out your idea, hiring a programmer is certainly not something to do before you have tried out your idea on the stable, free, always available platform. And honestly the underlying idea might not be too far off for more technical minded problems. Figure out what your product is, then build stuff around it. More failures than can be counted are centered around technology that didn't work out and more importantly wasn't required for the core product. It isn't that programming isn't important, it is the usual lean mindset, until you have a good idea of what your product is supposed to be, having a programmer working on structure for it is at best overly eager, at worst a complete waste of time.