Eric Sink’s blog is one of the first I started reading way back in the summer of 2003. He’s a good writer, a legendary geek, and a successful entrepeneur. I’ve written before that he’s Joel Spolsky without the attitude, but that’s not quite accurate. I read Joel On Software over the Easter weekend. I couldn’t put it down. His essays are much better in book form. Everytime I read one of Joel’s articles online, I’d think: He’s got some good points, but what an asshole! After reading his book, I don’t think he’s an asshole. Joel’s a smart guy; he knows it but he’s not afraid to whack you over the head with it. Eric is smart and he knows it, but doesn’t whack you over the head with it.
Anyway, he’s had a column at MSDN for the last year and a half called the Business of Software. His latest column, titled the same as this post, is about the importance of listening to geeks in a software company. Actually, if this is the first you’ve heard of the column, read all his columns.
I just finished a similar article from Paul Graham, another guy that will whack you over the head, entitled Why Smart People Have Bad Ideas(in truth, this article’s ideas span a couple of Eric’s columns). He starts off well, but, about 3/4 of the way down, he makes such an absurd assertion about those who can write optimizing compilers that I didn’t want to finish the article.
Yet both Sink and Graham say the same thing: business people aren’t necessary when you’re starting out. Whose article do you prefer?
Here are a couple articles you should read, in the order I give them: 1) Hackers And Painters, 2) Dabblers and Blowhards