I think the recent, cool web stuff has made programming look easier, even though it isn't. Maybe we're closer to to the tech, maybe we can expect more from software. We don't really appreciate any of these 'simple' web services that solve a lot of hard problems (eg, scale). Twitter is only 140 characters, but it's definitely not simple. That way it seems to outsiders like the hard part is coming up with the idea, instead of the execution.
Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups
51–53 of 53 posts
Re: Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Most aren't ready to be co-founders, technical or not. I think this is the crux of the matter. Most people aren't ready to be co-founders.
The only way you can get ready to do a start up is to do a startup?????
No. But if you immerse yourself in the language, the business and the culture of startups, you can learn enough to give it a shot. There's more to startups that 'tech' -- basic business skills are seemingly underrated by so-called technical people. The question should never be 'can we build it', but 'can we sell it'. A startup is a business, designed to make money. Building something with no business plan can be cool and useful, but a project doesn't become a startup until the project turns into a product -- which is something that makes money.
Re: Whistling Into a Tape Recorder: What the East Coast Doesn't Get About Startups
#53I ran into a toxic mentality on the East Coast where there was a class division between "thinkers/leaders" and "doers," and doing automatically placed a person into a lower class. The idea was that execution is for little people and ideas and "leadership" are for big people. I met a bunch of over-stuffed narcissistic and ineffectual big people who could sell like crazy and drum up endless interest by way of their ivy…
When studying management theory - this behaviour is categorised as 'Taylorism' - you can read an examination of the false assumptions behind it here: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/06/the-mana...
The MBA strikes me as the American capitalist counterpart to the Soviet apparatchik.