[adrianhoward]

Reality seems a bit more nuanced in my experience. Most of the time the idea person is more than just the idea person. The coder person is more than just the coder person.

For example I've seen many places where the company culture has come as much, if not more, from the technical than the idea side. I've seen investors remove the "idea guy" from a company because the organisation has has grown up around product development team - and he's become isolated from that.

Good developer folk need to understand the product vision - otherwise they can't build the product vision. Good idea folk need to understand the development side - otherwise they can't get a grip on the team dynamics as product development goes forward.

Great partnerships are well... partnerships. If either side thinks the other is a useless tool who isn't pulling their weight it's not going to go well :-)