[marcoi]

These posts (of which there are plenty) rely on the extremely common and (I think) extremely flawed assumption that company = technology + marketing/sales. Hence, great tech + great network = $$$. A company is first and foremost a product. Which involves understanding in a novel manner both your users and the technology to build it. Great product people can be techies, designers, "business people" (whatever that means), sales people, doctors and housewives. They are those who define the company. Secondly, a company is a team of individuals. Getting many people to work well together is very hard. Then there is technology, marketing, and finance and HR etc. Of course there are many "nontrepreneurs", but it gets boring to gripe about them. More importantly, I feel like an engineer who pidgeon-holes himself as a techie (and that's it) lacks ambition, and is unlikely to get senior in a successful startup. All techies I can think of who started a big one seem to prove this. (Signed: engineer AND business person)