Poll: Developers don't make good entrepreneurs.



  • [poll]

    • True
    • False
      [/poll]

    I am mostly of this opinion. Developer job is like that of person who is planting tree in forest, but vision of forest rarely come to good developer. Particular bad developer get this vision and becomes entrepreneur and has next multi-billion dollar enterprise.

    What is your experience in life?



  • I answered based on the logical premise of:

    If any part of a statement is false, the entire statement is false.

    Some good software developers can make great entrepreneurs. Some good developers would crash and burn as entrepreneurs. Thus, a blanket statement like "Developers don't make good entrepreneurs" is false.

    Also, some developers are very good at looking at different levels of complexity. To take your analogy, some developers can focus in on a single tree and determine that it is sick and work to make it better; but they can also look at the forest as a whole, and work to stop the fire that is burning up acres at a time.



  • No developer doesn't not make a bad entrepeneur

    [ ] not true
    [ ] don't disagree



  • If you have a good idea for a product and can bring it to market quickly and profitably, you're a good entrepreneur. If you lose sight of that goal, you're a bad entrepreneur.

    Your bad developer is a great entrepreneur. Especially if he wrote good code to make his product.



  • Who voted True? I want to meet you.



  • This thread is about @codinghorror isn't it.


  • Banned





  • Oh, now you've done it! I was hoping it would last the weekend 😦



  • @dhromed said:

    This thread is about @codinghorror isn't it.

    I am hoping not.



  • Interestingly, he doesn't write much code for Discourse.

    So he's an affirmative example here.



  • @riking said:

    Interestingly, he doesn't write much code for Discourse.

    So he's an affirmative example here.

    Honestly, I think of entrepreneur as the person who people like, the developer as the person who is mostly shy and introverted like fellow who is trying to please entrepreneur. Entrepreneur make big bucks, developer get appreciation letter and praise points. The recognition - does it really help you? Not unless you're developer at different level like Jon Skeet or Rob Ashton or Eric Lippert or Anders.

    Think of entrepreneur like King sitting on throne and developer like person carrying throne on back. I am not able to find suitable picture for this image. Maybe someone else can do that.



  • @Nagesh said:

    Honestly, I think of entrepreneur as the person who people like ...

    Why does the entrepreneur have to be likeable? Being charismatic is not a requirement in all businesses. In fact, for some businesses, success doesn't even require significant interaction with other people.



  • @abarker said:

    Why does the entrepreneur have to be likeable? Being charismatic is not a requirement in all businesses. In fact, for some businesses, success doesn't even require significant interaction with other people.

    Perhaps I am trying to make equation of King sittign on throne with people surrounding him to do bidding.



  • @Nagesh said:

    Perhaps I am trying to make equation of King sittign on throne with people surrounding him to do bidding.

    Yeah, but plenty of kings weren't liked. And plenty of successful business people aren't liked.

    Case in point: The software team in my company is preparing to spin-off into a new company. Our current CEO is going to be a silent partner in the new company. Why silent? Because he has alienated so many potential customers, that the other partners want to keep his involvement a secret. It's not because he's a bad entrepreneur, he just isn't a people person.


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