[ryanlchan]

I never said that these credentials are required (in fact I don't think they are), but that the OP implicitly believes them to be true. If you complain about the "lack of good technical cofounders" when there are 14,000 CS graduates every year and a flood of 'Ask HN: Smart developer needs job' posts springing up, you must either not be looking very hard or have ridiculously high expectations. The post is meant to highlight the ridiculousness of what many people expect of a "good" technical cofounder.

> I think your entire response is full of regurgitated garbage designed to serve the valleys current paradigm: devs are worth money - ideas are free.

Well that'd be quite ironic, as I'm on the non-technical side myself. In fact my argument is that neither of these are true. If you want to go start a start up, just go goddamn start it. Don't wait for your magic non-technical cofound to come around and solve all your problems.

[jkaykin]

Yeah you are right, I am probably not looking hard enough. I am not looking for someone who has done the aforementioned rather someone who can build good products. Nevertheless, I will go goddamn start it without a technical cofounder. Thank you.

[ryanlchan]

Excellent! Two quick clarifications on what I mean by "just go goddamn start it".

1. For a majority of contemporary companies, the primary risk is not technical, but market driven. In other words, your biggest problem isn't figuring out how to build the solution; it's figuring out what the solution should be in the first place. A ton of progress can be made on this front without a single line of code. 2. A startup is beset with an unceasing torrent of problems. You need a programmer for your MVP, true; but what happens when you need to start marketing? Do you go out and try to recruit an all star marketer? But wait we need sales as well - how many people do you want to go out and find? I don't mean to say that you need to be able to do everything, but figuring it out is a crucial skill to have as a founder, and this is one of the times you'll be practicing it.

Good luck!