> My advice to engineers is that it's nearly always easier to learn business/sales
Technical people mispredict the value of a business co-founder in a similar way to how this video talks about tech co-founders being misvalued. Cue jokes about sales-droids. But there is a mirror between businessy people undervaluing tech and tech undervaluing business.
A key point of the video is recruiting (albeit a form of sales): it is hard to sell "adventure" and belief.
We see this every time an engineer tries to shift to a managerial rôle and fails. In theory business skills can be learnt, in practice it is hard and perhaps easier to co-found with someone with the skills already. There are risks, but if you can't judge ability and integrity then you're already hosed.
The best example I can think of who cogently explains how they learnt is Jim Keller - talking about how he changed AMD.
Technical people mispredict the value of a business co-founder in a similar way to how this video talks about tech co-founders being misvalued. Cue jokes about sales-droids. But there is a mirror between businessy people undervaluing tech and tech undervaluing business.
A key point of the video is recruiting (albeit a form of sales): it is hard to sell "adventure" and belief.
We see this every time an engineer tries to shift to a managerial rôle and fails. In theory business skills can be learnt, in practice it is hard and perhaps easier to co-found with someone with the skills already. There are risks, but if you can't judge ability and integrity then you're already hosed.
The best example I can think of who cogently explains how they learnt is Jim Keller - talking about how he changed AMD.