[danking00]

I wonder if the trouble is not whether or not they are salesman but whether or not they are effective “managers,” for want of a better word. Many of the products we use today are built by companies of tens of thousands of people. Realizing Bush’s, Englebart’s, or Kay’s visions demands motivating and orchestrating armies of people with diverse skill sets.

Are any of these three known for their skill at orchestrating teams or organizations? Compare to some of the more famous scientists, engineers, etc., they’ve led large organizations. Like, Jeff Dean, Steve Jobs, J. Robert Oppenheimer, etc.

[simonster]

A brief look at the first few paragraphs of Vannevar Bush's Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush) would clearly establish that the answer to your question is yes.

[hardwaregeek]

Yeah Vannevar Bush is maybe an unfair example because he was truly before his time and he did build some stuff. I just felt he was worth pointing out as one of the originators of the whole knowledge graph tool for thought movement. I don’t know if he would have actually executed in modern times.

[hardwaregeek]

I think this is true to an extent. Some of these people did start out as managers but I think they realized whether consciously or not that the selling of ideas was far more beneficial than actually creating software.