Simon Willison’s Weblog

Tech Startups: What skills/technologies would the ideal technical co-founder possess?

11th February 2012

My answer to Tech Startups: What skills/technologies would the ideal technical co-founder possess? on Quora

The most important indicator is: can they ship? Can they prove that they know how to take a project from idea to running code deployed to a server somewhere with actual people interacting with it?

In my experience, the majority of people who graduate with a CS degree can’t program their way out of a wet paper bag. There are a few exceptions, and a few years working in industry often helps, but I think you’d be crazy to accept a CS degree as a sign that someone could help build a startup.