

Steve Jobs: When salespeople run tech giants it's over - rbanffy
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/steve-jobs-when-salespeople-run-tech-giants-its-over/61615

======
amandalim89
Groupon is a classic example: they have over 1,600 salespeople in the company.
This number represents 75% of the total Groupon staff
(<http://www.centernetworks.com/groupon-roundup>) I don't think they are
particularly innovative. Low barriers of entry. It's just about how fast you
can scale and yet it made it to the IPO stage. Few startups ever get to see
that. Thus (with all do respect) I disagree with Jobs that a tech startup run
by a salesman is doomed (although some might argue groupon is not really
considered "techy"). I think a startup needs a good mix of a hacker, a hustler
and a designer. Jobs was all 3 and that's what made Apple work.

------
goodweeds
This sounds a lot like Oracle and Rackspace. (My understanding is that of
Rackspace's 3,700 employees, 2,500 are sales reps and only 500 of them are
engineers. The rest serve in various administrative roles.)

