If You Want To Be The Donald Trump Of Startups, Learn To Code

Donald Trump is a legend in his own mind.

Yes, the legend has it that he knows the cost of everything. He could walk into a hotel under construction, and would know the cost of the faucet used in the bathroom sink, and would have a sense that it could be gotten $1 per unit cheaper with tougher negotiating skills. Knowing the true cost of things is a great asset in negotiation with suppliers.

But lets me honest. His success as a real-estate mogul is spotty. The casino company that bears his name (Trump Entertainment Resorts) has filed bankruptcy 3 times, and only owns 10% of the company currently and it's run by other people - mostly for the use of his name.

It seems the smartest thing he did was try to tie his name with luxury in the mind of the consumer. He does TV shows to reinforce his reputation as a ruthless businessman. He puts his name on every building he can - Trump this, Trump that. He's some type of marketing genius, not the king of real estate.

The second smartest thing he did was aggressively try to buy even undesirable property in Manhattan on the belief that even the port-lands would some day become places people would want to live. While everyone was focused on downtown, he was looking at the cheaper edges with a big vision of what it can become.

So what is the lesson for startups? While everyone is fighting over what they think is hot now (social! location! photos! online tv!), try and find what will logically be hot next and work there. And put your name on everything. A better lesson than "know the price of everything".

I don't think Donald Trump is a very good carpenter, or architect, if you want to be the Donald Trump of startups go to Wharton and then play the VC game.

You don't have to know how to code to do price discovery in tech. The cost of software is especially nebulous, and as PG recently talked about the vast majority of returns come from a few investments. I doubt very many buildings that Donald Trump put $18,000 into became $1 billion dollar buildings. Since the returns are concentrated and you have no idea which will be successful the strategy should be to put a little bit into a lot of startups, not learn to code and out compete your competitors by building software on a better cost basis.

I don't really want to be the Donald Trump of anything.

learn to code. see you in a few years.

did trump build a house brick by brick?

Demolition, architecture, plumbing, electrical work, heating, air conditioning, permits, labor, interior design, lumber, dry wall, 12 foot tall golden letters spelling your own last name--Trump's big edge is he knows the going rate for all of it. There are hundreds of details that go into turning a hunk of capital into a building; Donald Trump wins because he knows what all those details cost. And his competitors don't.

his competitors don't hire specialists who know that?

I'm guessing that the majority of HN readers fall into three categories (note I say "majority").

a) Younger business guys

b) Younger hackers

c) Older hackers

I am also guessing that among the "c" group most are not that familiar with Trump back in the late 70's when he got his start all the way through to now (Apprentice days). I've followed him for many years so I have a different perspective. I can tell from the comments here that many people take a view of Trump based on their limited exposure to him in the last few years. (I'm sure even PG hasn't been following Trump since his start or thought much about him at all. PG didn't become a "business guy" afaik till the mid 90's, right?). As someone who graduated Wharton and has followed business for close to 35 years I can assure you that despite your impression of him now he does well deserve the attention that he receives and he has earned it. Yes, he is a showman and yes people make fun of him. Guess what? His TV show, The Apprentice was very very successful and helped him make plenty of money. He earned that and did something very few business people are able to do. But people tend to throw bricks at many people who gain success and Steve Jobs was certainly no wall flower either. He used his celebrity to achieve and further his goals.

Hackers tend to be less outgoing and more humble at least that's my impression. That's not a feature, it's a bug in achieving the success you deserve, like any "artist". Don't knock others especially people who are known world wide, have TV shows and command premium prices for their name and image.

For a while there, I almost came up with a joke about how you cannot "code over" a lack of programming skills. Fortunately, the joke escaped me.

Now, back to programming.

"The bald truth is learning to program is still hard, despite recent gains in accessibility" <- This.

Regardless of all of the tools, you still have to work really really hard to be good. I guess that's true of everything. Even managing your billionaire hair.

Knowing what everything cost is not the same as being able to build. Sure you know a for loop, that dont make you a developer. You may just be able to know when the dev is lying, but really..

Poor article written on a poor premise. Even assuming that Donald Trump knows everything about how his company's physically operate (which btw, he doesn't), to say that his success is dependent upon that and not the myriad of other factors is a stretch. Further, again assuming that Trump knows all about how his company(s) operate, why are there countless counter examples? Warren Buffet anyone (who if I remember correctly is the 2nd richest man in the world now, because he gave away enough to make Bill Gates the 1st)? How did we come to call upon him as the standard of success? If I remember correctly, he isn't even in the top 100 richest people in the world.

Also, as someone from a business background who is also a programmer, I find the skill of irrelevance in business, and in some cases a hindrance. I am tired of seeing the same dead horse beaten into the ground.

Some hip programmers/start-up folks think that learning to code is going to be that thing that determines success or failure. Its not. If you are not a programmer by profession, then learning programming is not going to be the determining factor in getting you a job or helping with your start-up.

I wish that we all lived in some imaginary land where you knowing Java or understanding how software works, down to the byte of information is going to give you that next big investor or get you that next big job/promotion. Really, I wish it were the case. Unfortunately, its not. When a non-programmer applies for a non-programmer position at a fortune 500 company, not only does he not have space on his 1 page (or maybe 2 page) resume to list all the languages he knows or software projects he has worked on; even assuming he could, the HR manager on the other end is immediately going to toss that resume in the waste basket. Period.

Please HN, stop up voting the same retarded argument. Its made to the front page probably 100 times in the 3 years I have been here. Please stop. The horse is dead.