>Perhaps in 10x the timeframe they would producte something of similar capability
I think you missed a few zeros there!.I would argue that most developers would never (yes not even if they spend their entire lives) come up with anything even close to Fabrice Bellard or Paul Graham.
The difference is not genetic but of attitudes and as we all know very people are willing to change their attitudes.
"Thus the organized proletariat after the downfall of the capitalist system was to work for the establishment of state-owned and operated industry, the tremendous expansion of production by freeing it from capitalist restrictions, and the creation of a new psychology in which each would want to perform his social function. All capitalist ideology would be crushed, and all antagonistic differentiation between manual and mental labor (and therefore between town and country and between degrees of skill) would cease."
This gives me so much hope....I think we are going to see a revolution in Art and Media as more of these guys start getting "it"...The days of Big brother and his army of douchebag MBA's is soon going to be over!
Good luck with that....and please....if you can make Bingo Card Creator with your free time I would consider you a highly skilled technical person...Most "idea-guys" have trouble making their wordpress blogs!
My point is not that you don't have to know how to code to make Bingo Card Creator, it's that you could outsource its development to odesk and get it for $50.
"Smart nerds" are useless in most cases. They're interchangeable. Marketing and finding a niche are far, far more important.
Based on your comments, I'm going to guess that you've never run any sort of technically demanding business. I absolutely guarantee you that you wouldn't get something comparable back from ODesk, because you don't know how to spec out what he's got going on under the hood there. It takes a smart nerd to do that effectively.
>Engineers do not gather in a room and summon ideas to their pre-existing code.
Everything we build is on top of pre-existing stuff.If there was no mysql/php,there would be no facebook.If there was no OpenBSD,there would be no iOS.If there was no dns there would be no Google.
The mentality that anything is possible and you just need a nerd to do it is exactly the reason why I have a hard time working with non-technical people!
I didn't state that engineers don't use pre-existing code. I stated that they don't summon ideas to it. They have to be creative enough to come up with them on their own, or partner up with someone they know well who is just as capable and also has great ideas. That has nothing to do with layers of software abstraction and building upon them. If no new ideas were in play, we would continue using all the technologies you just mentioned, in their current frozen 2011 state, forever.
And let me just emphasize that engineering skill is invaluable and an absolute necessity. I also didn't state that anything is possible. I'm am simply tired of this 'ideas are worthless' sentiment because it is ridiculous. It should be 'an idea without the ability execute on it is just an idea' just as 'execution is impossible without an idea'.
And in that regard the idea of Google is the direct derivative of the idea of DNS....the idea of Facebook is a direct derivative of the idea of having personal computers that can exchange TCP Packets.
You have used Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey to make your argument.Please remember that these guys are among the best engineers of our generation.
As a matter of fact the ideas of almost all of our current technologies came from engineers and not MBAs.(If you think Steve Jobs was not an engineer please read his bio!).Forget computers...Even Henry Ford was one of the best engineers of his generation.
Most of my best implemented ideas (the word implemented is very important!) came to me when I asked myself the simple question...what can I do to help people with all the code that I already have (code = My own code and Open sourced stuff) ?..If there is something small that can complete a great idea I go ahead and code it!
A tech-nerd becoming a good businessman is not that common but we have seen many examples and we know its not that hard to do.(Take Eric Schmidt or Bill Gates for example).
Please give me ONE (I repeat ONE!) example of an MBA becoming a rockstar programmer....The fact there is possibly no one like that should give you a teeny tiny glimpse at the future!
I know a guy who majored in econ and attended bschool. He got into finance, and started writing code for finance. He got so into coding that he left finance, worked for various startups and big sv corps as a serious dev, and eventually got another ms in engineering. He's a very rare type though, this is a very unusual path. So overall id agree with you, though there are a few exceptions.
I too agree with you....Your example does prove that it is possible from a finance background!...but I would still point out that your guy had a sound mathematical mind whereas most MBA's and "idea guys" run the opposite direction when they hear any advanced math.
I work with a guy with an MBA in statistics and operations management. I don't know if he's "rockstar" programmer, but he writes his own Perl and shell scripts and SQL queries, I've heard he's pretty skilled in SAS programming, and I've watched him dig into some Javascript to figure out exactly why a particular A/B test was giving funny results.
Let me clarify what I mean by "rockstar programmer"....A rockstar programmer is someone who is orders of magnitude more productive that the average programmer of his generation....Someone who can build technologies himself that can disrupt entire industries...Some notable examples in this category are Linus Torvalds,Mark Zuckerberg,Doug Cutting,Mark Andressen etc....Now show me someone in this category from a purely business school background!
I am not talking about the business people who want to dig into Javascript (Although I have a lot of respect for the guy you are talking about).I am talking about someone who can build a technology like javascript.
well...I think creating a site like facebook in your dorm room as a college student and scaling it is significantly challenging (you are competing against myspace!)...but thats just my opinion!
But yeah I see what you are saying...Doug and Linus are pure technical problem solvers whereas Mark solved business and technical problems.
