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.
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.