

Should we get a different perspective on non-technical people? - DerekDawn82

I started this thread because for years i've seen non-technical people being bashed on forums and in real life because of their background and/or other stupid reasons.After some years of experience in the industry and some amazing discussions i must say that the situation is more complex than it seems.<p>I had a meeting with some investors and developers recently and we were talking about non-tech and tech people and what are the differences between them and after a long debate/discussions we realized that we were speaking of non-techies from different perspectives.<p>Some devs thought of them as a 3rd wheel to the carriage , some found them important.Investors had a problem with the name, stating that a non-technical person is in a way the same as the word “business” and it's too generalistic.<p>So at the end of the debate we reached these conclusions:<p>A non-technical person can have many roles in a startup and it should be clearly defined before he joined one.
A non-technical person can really suck or be a game-changer for the business.
Being a genius developer doesn't mean you can do both parts at the highest level.<p>These are some points i remember from the discussion.There are more but i will stop here for now.<p>Best example we can refer to is Steve Jobs.He was a non-techie after all.Why Was he better- in a way-  than Wozniak and/or the entire team?Well Simply because of his vision and innovative style.Being Able to create a product in your mind in the highest detail is a trait few people have, yet overlooked by most.The only major flaw these kind of people have is that they are really nothing without a tech team.So yes, a hacker can be everything but not necessarily a visionary.<p>I believe we should give more importance to them because some of them can really make or break a company.
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johnny22
how many of these bashers actually run successful companies.

