Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You do need a technical co-founder [video]

ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 381 posts

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#151

Post by ianlevesque »

simonw wrote: post #120
atoav wrote: post #4

This is what I constantly tell my students: The hard part about doing a tech product for the most part isn't the what beginners think makes tech hard — the hard part is wrangling systemic complexity in a good, sustainable and reliable way. Many non-tech people e.g. look at programmers and think the hard part is knowing what this garble of weird text means. But this is the easy part. And if you are a person who would…

I love the way you put this. It also doubles as a great explanation for why programmers shouldn't be worried that ChatGPT is going to steal their jobs: ChatGPT is good at the garble of weird text, but it's terrible at the "wrangling systemic complexity in a good, sustainable and reliable way" piece.

I think ChatGPT will eventually be good at the garble of weird text. It's immensely helpful already but you really must be checking up on what it is telling you. Plausible but non-existent or incorrectly used APIs are routine still. I definitely bet on it eventually getting there though.

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#152

Post by dogman144 »

opportune wrote: post #129

Even this article IMO subtly demonstrates the mindset that leads nontechnical founders to not think they need a technical cofounder, by phrasing the search for one as “recruiting” as if they were a subordinate or code monkey. It should be a partner relationship, not a subordinate relationship. This mindset that technical cofounders are essentially “coders” (a term I hate) is very prevalent among inexperienced nontech…

Heading over to MIT to “find a coder” is something you’ll hear from HBS aspiring founders.

I also deeply agree with the other part - there’s a class of technical leaders who have that depth and choose to work with technology as the primary day to day. But, they also don’t have HBS MBAs often.

Good VCs look for these founders I think, but otherwise the cultural treatment of that type can aspire one to get a MBA just to fix or re-align the perception.

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#153

Post by paulddraper »

opportune wrote: post #129

Even this article IMO subtly demonstrates the mindset that leads nontechnical founders to not think they need a technical cofounder, by phrasing the search for one as “recruiting” as if they were a subordinate or code monkey. It should be a partner relationship, not a subordinate relationship. This mindset that technical cofounders are essentially “coders” (a term I hate) is very prevalent among inexperienced nontech…

:shrug: CEOs get recruited too, i don't understand the problem

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#154

Post by FuckButtons »

simonw wrote: post #120
atoav wrote: post #4

This is what I constantly tell my students: The hard part about doing a tech product for the most part isn't the what beginners think makes tech hard — the hard part is wrangling systemic complexity in a good, sustainable and reliable way. Many non-tech people e.g. look at programmers and think the hard part is knowing what this garble of weird text means. But this is the easy part. And if you are a person who would…

I love the way you put this. It also doubles as a great explanation for why programmers shouldn't be worried that ChatGPT is going to steal their jobs: ChatGPT is good at the garble of weird text, but it's terrible at the "wrangling systemic complexity in a good, sustainable and reliable way" piece.

You know what computers couldn’t do 10 years ago? Understand and write coherent code. Why do you feel confident in your opinion that they won’t be able to do that in the next 10 years?

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#155

Post by _jal »

lainga wrote: post #142
opportune wrote: post #129

Even this article IMO subtly demonstrates the mindset that leads nontechnical founders to not think they need a technical cofounder, by phrasing the search for one as “recruiting” as if they were a subordinate or code monkey. It should be a partner relationship, not a subordinate relationship. This mindset that technical cofounders are essentially “coders” (a term I hate) is very prevalent among inexperienced nontech…

> while treating you like an idiot savant they can easily take advantage of. I considered it a bit, and you know what, I'd wager that four-fifths of tech business dynamics flow from this statement. Technical expertise is the money printer onto which all manners of value extraction anchor themselves, like barnacles. If not at the creation, then, for a time, it is good. And then it happens anyway 5-10 years down the li…

Yep. I used to be more charitable, but I've taken to being very short with founder wannabes who act like this. Bluntly, if they refuse to look past their preconceptions to see who they're actually talking to, why should I?

This is made easier knowing founders with those sorts of blinders are likely going to fail anyway, so you don't want to be in the blast radius when it happens.

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#156

Post by kragen »

gkoberger wrote: post #143
kragen wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you need a cofounder but there's no benefit in them being nontechnical

Do you really think there’s no skills or archetypes that are valuable on a founding team that doesn’t involve writing code?

[flagged]

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#157

Post by paulddraper »

hiddencost wrote: post #100

I'd argue the other side of the this: you don't need a non technical cofounder.

Depends what you're doing.

It's relatively rare nowadays to see tech solopreneurs. (At least, for something more than a lifestyle business.)

Often you need someone with experience/connections/insight into the industry: medicine, construction, ecommerce, finance, logistics, whatever.

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#158

Post by jschveibinz »

I'd like add to this conversation this two other important facts:

1) you (or your partner) do need domain experience and expertise. If you want open a bakery, or even try to automate a bakery, you really need at least some commercial baking experience. I see so many folks pitching a product in an area where they have zero experience.

2) you (or your partner) do need some organizational and/or business management experience. Business-whether it is software, hardware, or selling bakegoods-is about working with people and working with money. Learn about it and do some of it before starting uour own company.

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#159

Post by dijit »

FuckButtons wrote: post #154
simonw wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the way you put this. It also doubles as a great explanation for why programmers shouldn't be worried that ChatGPT is going to steal their jobs: ChatGPT is good at the garble of weird text, but it's terrible at the "wrangling systemic complexity in a good, sustainable and reliable way" piece.

You know what computers couldn’t do 10 years ago? Understand and write coherent code. Why do you feel confident in your opinion that they won’t be able to do that in the next 10 years?

1) an understanding of what LLMs can actually do

2) a strong history of understanding the limits of functional automation (why are there still project managers? Asana exists!)

3) an understanding that progress will slow in this space considerably once we have made the big wins and the hype cycle dies down. (see also; every tech hype cycle)

Re: You do need a technical co-founder [video]

#160

Post by kragen »

omeze wrote: post #148
kragen wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's a selection bias at play here suppose you need to either be in the top percentile of handsome and the top percentile of emotionally aware to get a job as a hollywood actor, but these attributes are uncorrelated in the general population, so 99% of top-percentile-of-handsome people will be top-percentile-of-sensitive and vice versa then the pool of hollywood actors you observe will contain, out of every 199 pe…

Berkson’s Paradox: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkson%27s_paradox#:~:text=... .

thank you, that's exactly right. he even used my attractive-celebrities example
Post reply on HN