Comments on: The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups http://www.integrativestream.com/2007/03/11/the-18-mistakes-that-kill-startups.html Disrupting Innovation since 2002 Mon, 24 Dec 2007 12:57:52 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: John http://www.integrativestream.com/2007/03/11/the-18-mistakes-that-kill-startups.html/comment-page-1#comment-26367 John Mon, 12 Mar 2007 01:54:27 +0000 http://www.integrativestream.com/2007/03/11/the-18-mistakes-that-kill-startups.html#comment-26367 Paul Graham's story is correct, but he's emphasizing the wrong part: It's not hiring bad programmers, it's business leaders in high tech who just don't know enough about the software development process or the special problems of hiring techies. I.e., the title just can't be "hiring bad programmers": That's the symptom not the disease. [And one could be the question in the first place: "bad"? What an empty word.] When he says: "I was about to say you’d have to find a good programmer to help you hire people. But if you can’t recognize good programmers, how would you even do that?" Answer: Find a business/tech hybrid who has done it before. (Someone like Will Crawford, perhaps.) The big answer is about the impedance mismatch between business knowledge and technology knowledge. That's the hard one. You might almost want to rephrase the mistake as: "Ignore the knowledge impedance between business process and technology process." Paul Graham’s story is correct, but he’s emphasizing the wrong part: It’s not hiring bad programmers, it’s business leaders in high tech who just don’t know enough about the software development process or the special problems of hiring techies. I.e., the title just can’t be “hiring bad programmers”: That’s the symptom not the disease.

[And one could be the question in the first place: "bad"? What an empty word.]

When he says: “I was about to say you’d have to find a good programmer to help you hire people. But if you can’t recognize good programmers, how would you even do that?”

Answer: Find a business/tech hybrid who has done it before. (Someone like Will Crawford, perhaps.)

The big answer is about the impedance mismatch between business knowledge and technology knowledge. That’s the hard one. You might almost want to rephrase the mistake as: “Ignore the knowledge impedance between business process and technology process.”

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