| You make some solid points. My net-net or tl;dr of it all is this: For anyone you work with to respect you, you must show that you at least have tried to do they work you hired them to do, and done it competently. The longer version: As a CEO of a software company it means you've at least developed in a couple languages (even if its only php, ruby and some Obj. C) and actually built something. As CEO you need to also be good at (or at least had some success at) sales to be able to attract talented and well connected sales execs. If you can do both things at an above average level, you are irreplaceable. Again, both dev and sales positions are crucial. It's very hard to find someone even marginally good at both. Great salespeople and devs should be paid and treated like the rockstars that they are. That's the easy part. The hard part is actually being the guy who can bridge both worlds. You're not worth the paper your business card is printed on if you can't attract talent, raise capital, sling a little code, sell, and ultimately be the product manager for your company/product on any given day. It's a hard effin' job, and if done well will earn you the rockstar hires that will make your company zoom. |
In fact I would prefer somebody who didn't know that much about computers, since he is properly happy enough letting me do my job with little to no useless interference.