What are considered to be the best guides for finding a non-technical cofounder as a teachnical person? Almost every guide I've read seems to treat this as easy, yet I found it almost impossible when I tried.
"Hackers are perfectly capable of hearing the voice of the customer without a business person to amplify the signal for them. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were grad students in computer science, which presumably makes them "engineers." Do you suppose Google is only good because they had some business guy whispering in their ears what customers wanted? It seems to me the business guys who did the most for Google were the ones who obligingly flew Altavista into a hillside just as Google was getting started.
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And compared to the sort of problems hackers are used to solving, giving customers what they want is easy. Anyone who can write an optimizing compiler can design a UI that doesn't confuse users, once they choose to focus on that problem. And once you apply that kind of brain power to petty but profitable questions, you can create wealth very rapidly"
Business isn't UI design, and while it may be a domain that engineers can learn, it's often one that they aren't interested in learning, and, even if they are, the time they spend on the learning curve is a disadvantage to the venture.
Read the whole essay. Also, engineers who aren't interested in learning what customers need shouldn't be starting a company.
"Hackers are perfectly capable of hearing the voice of the customer without a business person to amplify the signal for them. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were grad students in computer science, which presumably makes them "engineers." Do you suppose Google is only good because they had some business guy whispering in their ears what customers wanted? It seems to me the business guys who did the most for Google were the ones who obligingly flew Altavista into a hillside just as Google was getting started."
(side note: I was at Altavista at the time after an acquisition, and that is exactly what happened)
Its a different set of skills, maybe you can learn them, maybe not. And even if you learn them, will you be as good as the person who has been honing them for years? Sure I can sell, but it does NOT excite me. And life's too short to do things you dislike.
Warning: I have been screwed by non-technical "late" founders. People who have not been there since the beginning but do see the potential of what I have created. One cost me 10's of millions, but que sera sera.
Yup: it's easy to find a business-y co-founder, but it's hard to figure out if they are going to be a great one.
At the end of the day, the only real way is that you've actually worked with them in the past.
How about bringing in co-founders[0], but at the project level with a cliff etc? It will be obvious by 6 months as to who's cutting it and the group will self-select to stay on. That should minimize the risk.
One approach is to look for a market that you're bullish on or interested in, and find some blogs or conferences or meetups for that industry, or find some businesses competing in it, identify people involved who seem to have good ideas, and start networking with them.
The target audience for Soylent is people for whom the pleasure of "eating tasty food" is weaker than it is for you. If you think of a use of time that you theoretically approve of but rarely feel inclined to choose over other activities (looking at paintings is an example of this for many people), you have a good approximation of what "eating food" feels like for many people.
"* Two is learn to code enough to bang out a prototype -- this will also make you a better engineering manager if you can appreciate the technical craft and can empathize with engineers. And there are tools like Balsamiq that can help create reasonable mockups that can convey your idea without writing code."
I've always been confused by how this is meant to help - could you explain further? I've always been a technical founder, but I've never had any idea how to find a technical co-founder - as you correctly say, good technical people will have their idea they're excited about! So I'm always skeptical that "make a prototype" would work to convince anyone, but perhaps it would - is there some hidden pool of good engineers who exist in some weird fugue state of "show me a cool semi-working website and I'm on-board", outside of, like, 1st year CS?
I can talk about something completely different– I'm a writer, and I work with visual designers. They much, much prefer it when I can give them a terrible sketch of an idea rather than a lengthy diatribe about what I want. Because it's far easier for them to apply their design sensibilities to a crappy sketch than to a cloud of words.
Similarly- I don't think it's "show me a cool semi-working website and I'm on-board", but more of- "Show me something that I recognize immediately as a really good idea, even though it's kind of crappy in execution."
> Pixar uses a structure known as a braintrust to delicately examine works-in-progress. The braintrust is composed of some of the best storytellers of our generation who take a supreme effort in understanding the director's intent before offering suggestions.
> What's most incredible is that this feedback from the world-class cabal is merely suggestive and the director has the power to reject changes. The braintrust is aware of the danger of heavy-handed feedback squashing the soul of the product.
> New ideas are delicate and brittle. What starts off as a ugly, tangential feature later grows up to become a fundamental part of the final product.
A sincere and non-troll question - I'd be really interested in hearing from people who have a major use for speed reading. I'm finding it difficult to visualise the material such readers are encountering - are they reading for pleasure or work? Presumably, if the former, reading speed is unrelated to enjoyment (in fact, a slight negative correlation), while, if the latter, isn't the time spent actually reading a vanishingly tiny portion of digestion? It takes me (and I'd imagine most people?) around 5 minutes to read a menu, for instance, of which time my estimate would be that around 5-10 seconds were spent actually reading the words. But this technology is clearly of great interest to people - what am I missing?
Hi! That is exactly what they need: fractions are just a way to explain division and it helps them a lot (actually they are the basis for the "rule of three" which is the "fifth rule").
Proportions. Trying to start with square (?) triangles and the idea of similarity of triangles so that they can later (when 12-13) understand trigonometry (the basics) which, once again, is PROPORTIONALITY. There is little more to 'maths' than that.
What I object to is the unnecessary abstraction. Getting 10-11s to perform correct computations is hard but exactly what they need: lots of exercises (no sweat no learn or whatever).
You are a HERO. Really. In all caps My respect. I teach undergrads and this is way easier.
Aw! This was super kind, and I like the idea of stressing proportionality. It's nice to be told that the abstraction can wait - I've felt like I should be abstracting more at times, but it's not my natural instinct, so it's nice to be told I'm doing things right on that front! I feel the same way about anyone who can teach older (or younger!) mathematicians - keep on keeping on.
Oh, I really mean it. Teachers to children (and especially maths teachers) are essential for our society, and have one of the hardest job.
Focusing on proportions you can teach almost anything: from basic triangle geometry, including elements of what later they will know as 'trigonometry', to interest rates -even letting the best get the scent of 'compound interests'-, to areas & volumes to the notion of 'speed' as a ratio, to how to save money for the future... There is little more a normal 'literate' person needs to know, as I see it.
However, it takes quite an effort getting them to actually perform the computations. This is where 'good' -appealing- exercises and problems are required, and this is where the teacher's craftmanship comes into play. A good craftman will find the correct and 'fancyful' exercises, according to the class, the student, the time... You know, this is where the 'heroism' takes place.
Really, the most important thing you can teach is the context behind the maths. Find examples in real life of where the maths is applicable; spend 3/4 of a lesson explaining the backstory as to why we do things the way we do. Students lose their way because maths is presented as an endless series of facts to rote learn, with no context. There's a thriving backstory of human ingenuity behind the numbers and operations which sadly gets little or no time in the classroom.
Read Bill Bryson's book "a short history of nearly everything" for an example of the style I wish my maths classes had been taught in. It's a survey of science book, but mostly focuses on the human interaction behind the discoveries & theories, and makes fascinating reading because of it. We need to teach maths (and all hard technical subjects) closer to this approach.
One fun parallel - not to literacy, but to another skill at which artsy types are often better than mathematicians - is the oft-repeated, and completely acceptable, "I can't read minds".
Lots of people can read minds. Not literally, of course, but they've put in the work (and perhaps it was work that they found easy and pleasant, much as many programmers found math) to be able to essentially tell what people want, don't want, are implying, will be offended by, etc. Yet I've certainly heard plenty of people, and especially STEM-types, making a point of pride about lacking this skill: "I'm a straight-shooter" and the like. There's aspergers and there's dyscalculia, but many STEM types who happily admit to lacking this skill are just like those whom the author bemoans - they find it difficult and uninteresting. And that's okay! But it's no truer, really, than "I can't do maths".
I may be missing something rather obvious here, but I've read the article three times, and can find no reference to 'coaching' or 'after-school tutorials' at all here. Are they mentioned elsewhere?
As a former teacher, here is an example lesson plan:
AGE GROUP: Year 5
TOPIC: Introducing prime numbers
STARTER: Mixed multiplication table questions on board.
MAIN ACTIVITY: Write the number 92 on the board. Ask students whether '92' appears in any multiplication table. When the answer '2' is received, stress that multiplication tables do not end at 10 or 12, but continue on indefinitely. Repeat for the numbers '999', '186', and '495'. Next, write the number 71 on the board. Students will conclude that it does not appear in any 'tables'. Explain that it does, offering a reward for the first correct answer. With or without hinting, get the answer '1' or '71'. Offering a second reward, get the second of the pair. Explain that every whole number is in the 'one' times table and the 'itself' times table. However, such numbers are called 'prime' if those are the only ones. Ask students to name other prime numbers below 50, discussing suggestions.
Complete is_it_prime.doc. Students who finish quickly should attempt is_it_prime_2.doc.
That's not meant to be particularly inspiring or anything, just representative. As a teacher, you have a legal obligation to have such a plan for every lesson you teach (this was true in the UK, can't speak for other countries).
You would need a little more than that now. Differentiated outcomes &c
I get the impression that in the US they don't have a national curriculum or external exams &c so the teacher has to do more long term planning on their own.
