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Bezos & Gates are brilliant businessmen. Woz is a superb engineer, a genius of an engineer, but Jobs truly built the Apple that is today. Brin & Page were highly capable and smart researchers and scientists, not programmers or "hackers" as the term goes here.

You're still not getting my point. Nevermind.

I get your point, I'm just disagreeing with it.

If you want to startup in a lightweight / agile fashion, why have an "idea guy" when you can have someone who can execute AND code?

Beyond that, I think that in high-tech it's far more common to have a company founded by a hacker than it is an MBA. I don't have concrete numbers on that, so it's purely my opinion.

I'm an idea guy, I'm also a coder. I can write code, that works. But I'm by no means a hacker. I'm not an MBA type, will never be. Once you're done writing some code, the prototype, something that works decently well - and to do that you don't need to be a nerdy hacker - you need skills that go far beyond the bits/bytes and if-else loopy world of programming.

It's really not that difficult to build a web product or service these days.

That word executioner, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Yea, I realized that :D

I realized my own folly - I certainly haven't built a profitable company or a popular product yet. I'm in the process but far from it yet. So I should stop commenting on what it takes to build one :)

I wish I could explain my point better.

It's true that you need additional skills to grow a successful company, but without the product/technical skills, you can't start recruit or sustain a company. A technical company is primarily a function of its people and its products. As companies mature, more adults that aren't as product focused come in and think it's entirely about brand, marketing, sales, etc. It's true that those things that bring in the money, but once your focus shifts toward those areas, you'll inevitably turn into a EBay, Yahoo, or Apple (pre-Jobs). When Jobs came back, he said the only thing he did was shift the company's focus toward "product" not marketing or sales.

I've had many non-technical friends that have had a "great" idea and wanted to recruit programmers. It's never worked. It's best if you have the skills yourself.

A lot of people were surprised that Amazon not Google dominates cloud computing or that it branched out to the Kindle. Amazon has always had a technical culture focused on great user experiences. It's not a surprise at all when you take a look at it from that standpoint.

It's true that you need additional skills to grow a successful company, but without the product/technical skills, you can't start recruit or sustain a company. A technical company is primarily a function of its people and its products. As companies mature, more adults that aren't as product focused come in and think it's entirely about brand, marketing, sales, etc. It's true that those things that bring in the money, but once your focus shifts toward those areas, you'll inevitably turn into a EBay, Yahoo, or Apple (pre-Jobs). When Jobs came back, he said the only thing he did was shift the company's focus toward "product" not marketing or sales.

I've had many non-technical friends that have had a "great" idea and wanted to recruit programmers. It's never worked. It's best if you have the skills yourself.

A lot of people were surprised that Amazon not Google dominates cloud computing or that it branched out to the Kindle. Amazon has always had a technical culture focused on great user experiences. It's not a surprise at all when you take a look at it from that standpoint.

Don't forget John Walker, Autodesk.

It's true that you need additional skills to grow a successful company, but without the product/technical skills, you can't start recruit or sustain a company. A technical company is primarily a function of its people and its products. As companies mature, more adults that aren't as product focused come in and think it's entirely about brand, marketing, sales, etc. It's true that those things that bring in the money, but once your focus shifts toward those areas, you'll inevitably turn into a EBay, Yahoo, or Apple (pre-Jobs). When Jobs came back, he said the only thing he did was shift the company's focus toward "product" not marketing or sales.

I've had many non-technical friends that have had a "great" idea and wanted to recruit programmers. It's never worked. It's best if you have the skills yourself.

A lot of people were surprised that Amazon not Google dominates cloud computing or that it branched out to the Kindle. Amazon has always had a technical culture focused on great user experiences. It's not a surprise at all when you take a look at it from that standpoint.