Why Student Programmers Rant about Business Students with “Ideas”

Indeed, indeed.

I wish that there was some way to discuss a stereotype without assuming some responsibility for perpetuating it, but I don't know of such a way.

But stereotypes shouldn't be taboo for reasonable discussion here. That something is uncomfortable to talk about doesn't make it false or nonsense. In fact, I find that uncomfortable subjects are most interesting to explore because they force you to consider what you otherwise prefer not to believe.

The funny thing about all of these rants is that they reflect an outmoded understanding of the engineer/MBA dynamic in the tech business.

Since the first boom, the number of wildly successful tech companies started solely by engineers far outnumbers those started by business guys, backed up by some engineers. The smart money has followed along, such that the "business" requirements a VC looks for are pretty slim. They no longer care if you have an MBA on the team. Not even a little bit. I know this to be true, because I've talked to a half dozen VCs and a few angels. They don't care that our company is two hackers working out of our houses. They care that we've built something that millions of people use daily.

You need a business plan, sure, but it can be eight pages and mostly charts. Any hacker with a couple hours to kill and a word processor and spreadsheet, a deep understanding of their business and their market, and a couple of example business plans, can make that happen. You need a monetization strategy that makes sense, but business guys are no better equipped to come up with this than the hackers who spend half their time researching the competition and other businesses that work in similar fields (hackers are obsessive compulsive about research, so it comes very naturally). The most successful monetization strategy of the last ten years (context sensitive ads) was created by a nerd.

The stereotypical nerd no longer matches the stereotype. I've seen it at several companies where I've contracted over the years. Older developers (say, 40+) are nerdy in the traditional sense. A little overweight, a little socially inept, a little insecure in meetings except when discussing their particular interests, etc. The younger ones are generally healthier than average, more likely to have hot girlfriends/boyfriends, aggressive enough in meetings to handle even the most boisterous business guy, and full of the confidence that comes only from having a really firm grasp on your subject. It's not always true, but true enough that I feel confident saying it about the majority of great engineers. And, good engineers are no longer broke...they make a lot of money when they want to work for another company. Not MBA money, but they aren't desperate for any crumbs you want to throw their way. If the engineer you're talking to is desperate, he's not a good engineer, or at least, hasn't had the time in the market to establish that he's a good engineer. A BS in computer science has recently become the highest paying four year degree for first-time job seekers.

Business guys can certainly bring things to the table--but a hacker no longer needs one in the roster to raise money or build a successful company. They may hire one later, when the business side of the business is a full-time job.

So, I can understand business guys feeling a bit upset by this turn of events...and they can certainly point to lots of hacker-founded failures that made major business mistakes. But the road of MBA-founded tech startups is also littered with innumerable failures, for many of the same reasons (and a few additional ones, like: failure to deal with technology appropriately).

MBAs are certainly useful. They make a lot of money in established companies for a reason--starting salary for MBAs at Google is higher than for a fresh-out-of school engineer. But a tech startup doesn't NEED an MBA to reach a reasonable level of success. Accept it and move on. Sure, you can still start a tech startup, if you're a "business guy"...but you need a hacker, so you'd better get used to treating them as a partner rather than an employee and someone you can look down on as socially inferior. We've got hotter girlfriends than you, now, you know?

Really? I thought the folks in WFP07 were almost universally pretty good looking, healthy, skinny folks. Some were better looking and skinnier than others (Heysan, for example). And the software dev shop I worked for in Austin, Texas was chock full of good looking dudes with good looking wives/girlfriends (and it had double nerd power--they developed scientific computing applications and had geologists and mathematicians who were also software developers).

Perhaps you haven't looked at the average American lately...

I'm not sure I buy this. I think the best hackers (perhaps not the same as engineers) have a certain mindset that doesn't go away. The oldest working developer I've ever worked with also happens to be the fellow that turned me on to Ruby AND Lua, when nobody on Reddit was talking about them (actually before reddit existed) and nobody else in the office was tinkering with them. He just had a roving interest in technology and loved to play with new stuff. But certainly even the nerdiest of sorts learns that there are some problems that can't be solved with code--and that does make a big difference in how one approaches running a business.