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This is exactly right. People don't choose their passions; their passions choose them. Specialization is a Good Thing.



Fair enough, Steve Jobs serves as a prime example for this. Wozniak was a far better engineer than Jobs. I guess I should have elaborated, you don't need to be a coding ninja to run a startup but I do honestly feel that a solid understanding of coding and computer systems is essential for any tech entrepreneur.


Steve Jobs could code. He was a technical founder.


Can you show me where that's written somewhere? I never heard Steve Jobs coded and his Wikipedia page doesn't seem to mention it.


Jobs had a hand in making event loops standard programming fare, and was there when Apple and NeXT pushed languages such as Objective-C and Dylan and various software frameworks, and decided to cease supporting others. - http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/4372

I can't find the link but I also read about Jobs going on a tirade to his employees about some aspect of Objective-C while at Apple.

Another case supporting him as a technical cofounder(although not a programmer) is when he worked at Atari on 'Breakout'. From wikipedia: "The same year, Alcorn assigned Steve Jobs to design a prototype. Jobs was offered US$750, with an extra $100 each time a chip was eliminated from the prospected design. Jobs promised to complete a prototype within four days. Jobs noticed his friend Steve Wozniak—employee of Hewlett-Packard—was capable of producing designs with a small number of chips, and invited him to work on the hardware."

Jobs may not have done the job himself but he was clearly working in a technical position at the time.


Woz's book describes a fairly technically involved young Steve Jobs back in the day. I can't recall if it was code exactly, but deep into technology. Not your stereotypical "sales and marketing" guy.




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