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

So you "just need a hacker", huh?

subwindow.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 114 posts

Re: So you "just need a hacker", huh?

#31

Post by kingkongrevenge »

webframp wrote: post #15
mixmax wrote: post #12

It's hard to find a brilliant hacker. But it's equally hard to find a brilliant marketing guy, a brilliant sales guy or a brilliant CEO. While I don't disagree with the point of the post I think that many hackers should step back and look at how many great marketing people, CEO's etc. they know. The actual programming part is only a small part of starting a company, but many hackers seem to think it is all they need…

traditionally the hackers have been the most undervalued in the whole equation.

Philip Greenspun wrote convincingly about how programmers are under valued because they fail to treat programming as a proper profession. They don't dress and otherwise present themselves professionally. They fail to interface professionally with customers and analysts as a doctor or lawyer would. Programmers themselves tend to demand a management style that treats them as a cog in the machine, where they are fed detailed requirements and produce output for others to deal with.

The nature of programming work is not so far removed from what a corporate lawyer or financial analyst does. Yet programmers have a much different public image. I think it's fair to say programming attracts certain idiosyncratic personalities that affect the general perception of the work.

On the same theme as the grandparent post, don't undervalue the soft touch. There are people who bring to the table little more than that they're nice and likeable. I've seen such people in analyst roles responsible for retaining or creating substantial business.

Re: So you "just need a hacker", huh?

#33

Post by notauser »

mixmax wrote: post #12

It's hard to find a brilliant hacker. But it's equally hard to find a brilliant marketing guy, a brilliant sales guy or a brilliant CEO. While I don't disagree with the point of the post I think that many hackers should step back and look at how many great marketing people, CEO's etc. they know. The actual programming part is only a small part of starting a company, but many hackers seem to think it is all they need…

I wonder which is really harder, becoming a good enough coder, or becoming a good enough $specialty.

Computers are, lets face it, logical things. How much programming skill do you _really_ need to build a prototype? The ability to logically think through a problem, the ability to decompose it into small enough chunks, and then to make those chunks work. Sure, it won't be pretty or elegant or scale if you suck at data structures and algorithms, but it doesn't _need_ to be pretty and elegant to get through the prototype stage. Heck some major sites are ugly, inelegant, and scale like a man climbing a wet glass wall.

Fortunately computers are viewed as 'super hard' (genuine quote) by the general population... for now. If that changes, by virtue of people being introduced to start-simple-get-complex coding (eg excel macros, flash) or easier creation tools being developed, geeks who bang out simple web apps could be much less competitive as startup founders.

That's not to say they won't be valued - someone will need to clean up the huge pile of steaming junk thrown out by Dreamweaver 6. And there will still be genuinely hard problems to solve... which is one reason why I'm basing my startup on a problem set that requires efficient graph coloring and traversal :)

Re: So you "just need a hacker", huh?

#34

Post by mixmax »

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #31
webframp wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

traditionally the hackers have been the most undervalued in the whole equation.

Philip Greenspun wrote convincingly about how programmers are under valued because they fail to treat programming as a proper profession. They don't dress and otherwise present themselves professionally. They fail to interface professionally with customers and analysts as a doctor or lawyer would. Programmers themselves tend to demand a management style that treats them as a cog in the machine, where they are fed det…

Very true - my experience is that "the soft touch" that you so eloquently call it is far more important than people generally think.

If people care about what they are doing and come to work happy and ready they will produce much better work.

Re: So you "just need a hacker", huh?

#35

Post by daniel-cussen »

tptacek wrote: post #32

Commenters here talk as if no successful business was ever started by a sharp businessperson who hired software developers. Clearly, many such businesses exist.

I know of businesses who look like they were started by businesspeople who hired hackers because the hackers were later ousted (like digg). The businessperson displaced the hacker after the fact. Can you think of any businesses were there where this clearly didn't happen? Can you think you any successful software company started by a businessperson who paid consulting fees to thoughtworks or IBM, set up a booth at a CS department to recruit techies, or paid a headhunter?

Re: So you "just need a hacker", huh?

#36

Post by run4yourlives »

jmtulloss wrote: post #18
mixmax wrote: post #12

It's hard to find a brilliant hacker. But it's equally hard to find a brilliant marketing guy, a brilliant sales guy or a brilliant CEO. While I don't disagree with the point of the post I think that many hackers should step back and look at how many great marketing people, CEO's etc. they know. The actual programming part is only a small part of starting a company, but many hackers seem to think it is all they need…

Sure I need a brilliant CEO, brilliant marketing guy, etc, etc. But first I need a great product. I'm going to make that, not the other guys.

You just might want to make sure you have some people interested in buying your "great product" too.

Re: So you "just need a hacker", huh?

#37

Post by SwellJoe »

tim2 wrote: post #22
dangrover wrote: post #14

I liked this rant, immature as it might be. Just about every month, some business student will come to me and say they've got some "amazing idea" and just need someone to do the work of implementing it. Before I even hear their idea, I do a simple mental calculation. First, I have to see their skills at least exceed mine in the same areas. For instance, I'm a competent but mediocre designer and marketer in addition t…

Send them to an outsourcing site. Tell them you'll offer a competitive rate. Most of these guys won't think of spending a dollar.

I wouldn't work for rates "competitive" with those at eLance or Rent-A-Coder. I've done projects through those sites, and despite explicitly stating, "Don't bother with lowball offers--we're looking for good work, not low prices. We are developers, and we will be judging your experience and code harshly." I still got bids of 150 bucks for a project that I would have billed a weeks worth of hours for. They, of course, would do a horrible job, and not even worth that much...but you shouldn't try to compete on price with those folks.

Re: So you "just need a hacker", huh?

#38

Post by carpal »

carpal wrote: post #26
mynameishere wrote: post #21

The problem is this: If Wozniak had the mentality of a 14-year-old with a thing for Marilyn Manson records and huffing glue, he would have said the same thing to Steve Jobs. Who is upmodding such rubbish? Seriously--

There are two main differences: 1) Apple was a hardware startup. Hardware startups need funding and someone to aggressively sell the product in person to big vendors. Software startups don't usually need that kind of person (unless they're going after the Enterprise cookie). 2) It was in the 70's, and startups were, in general, harder to start than they are now.

I went a bit more in-depth here:

http://subwindow.com/articles/12

It turns out that Apple is a totally perfect example.

Re: So you "just need a hacker", huh?

#40

Post by cstejerean »

tom_rath wrote: post #30
jmtulloss wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure I need a brilliant CEO, brilliant marketing guy, etc, etc. But first I need a great product. I'm going to make that, not the other guys.

You wouldn't start coding something before you'd fleshed out a design, right? So why would you start designing something before you identified the market for it? Marketing is the social component of design, and you need brilliant marketing before you can create that brilliant product.

Not start coding before you fleshed out the design? Not design until you've identified a market? Sounds like a recipe for never getting anything done. That might be the proper way to tackle things when you have a big upfront costs, but generally for software you can just start coding on things you find useful and interesting. If others are interested, great, you've got a company. If not you just have a useful product and then you can move onto something else.
Post reply on HN