[aswanson]

If I give up and sell out, at least I'll have a comfy position at a respectable company where people smarter than me would respect what I have to offer because I have 6 years worth of thinking about the problem on them.

No they won't. You'll be a part of a dispirited bureauacracy, and nobody will care. They probably won't even finish the project.

Your best bet is to get a bunch of young college age programmers to work with you. They are unemployed and are ready to hit it out of the park. If I was in NYC I would hear you out and try to help. Start looking for talent where the people are hungry.

[NSX2]

> our best bet is to get a bunch of young college age > programmers to work with you.

Columbia couldn't seem to care less, and the entire NYU structure has so far gotten ... hold your breath ... 2 resumes. Only one of which was remotely relevant, but not experienced enough to take initiative on this.

And since I'm not a programmer, I don't have the experience to provide guidance in that department.

I don't know why, but NY is not very start-uppity at all. People here fantasize about going to work for the IT dept. of Morgan Stanley or something.

[trevelyan]

Give up. You're six years into a development project that requires programmers but you don't have any programmers. You seem to think that a company will hire you because you have experience - if your work is really that valuable why haven't they hired you already?

Get a job and continue to work on this in your spare time. Fund development and be smart about making what you build as generally-useful as possible (an enabling technology rather than a solution). If the market pans out for this other company, there will be opportunities for you... assuming you executed.

[aggieben]

It strikes me as odd that you've been noodling for 6 years an idea that needs programmers to implement, but you haven't become a programmer yourself in all that time.

Do you have any idea how many "Learn X in 21 Days" books you can read in 6 years? :-)