Even the "Idea Person" Should Learn How To Code

theodp writes: "A few months ago," writes Steph Rhee, "I was at a dinner with a dozen students and a 60-year-old entrepreneur who made himself a fortune on Wall Street. At the time, I was a junior at Yale and the only person at the table studying a computer-related major. We went around saying what our big dreams were. When I said that I'm studying computer science because I want to be a software engineer and hope to start my own company one day, he said, 'Why waste so many years learning how to code? Why not just pay someone else to build your idea?'" But Rhee isn't buying into the idea of the look-Ma-no-tech-skills "idea person." "We must not neglect the merits of technical skills in the conception of the 'idea person,'" she argues. "What the 60-year old entrepreneur and others of his generation — the people in control of the education we receive — don't realize is this: for college students dreaming of becoming unicorns in Silicon Valley, being an 'idea person' is not liberating at all. Being able to design and develop is liberating because that lets you make stuff. This should be a part of what we see in the 'idea person' today and what it means to be 'right' when designing an undergraduate curriculum."

Comments

Very finance specific

[Errol backfiring]

a 60-year-old entrepreneur who made himself a fortune on Wall Street

The con, sorry, finance industry is one of the few areas where sane thinking only leads to people jumping ship instead of production. In real professions, you'd better know what you are talking about.

I always wonder how anyone with more than a half brain cell can work in the finance industry and still look at himself in the mirror each morning.

Re:Very finance specific

[gweihir]

I always wonder how anyone with more than a half brain cell can work in the finance industry and still look at himself in the mirror each morning.

Apparently, 1 in 100 persons is a psychopath. In the finance industries, among CEOs, military leaders and politicians, that rate is much worse. And there are always the narcissists, the authoritarian followers and the plain stupid. How do you think "they" get anybody to fight wars, to spy on everybody, etc.?

Re:Listen to the old guy

[Bengie]

There is an over-abundance of mediocre programmers, making them easily replaceable.There is very high demand for programmers, just not of the mediocre variety. Where I work, the problem domain is complex enough that we have about a 1 year learning curve before a programmer brings in a net profit. It takes us 6 months to a year to find a new programmer. We're specialized enough that both Google and Microsoft have partnered with us so we can help them.

Finding good programmers is hard.