I don't think he sees a "duct tape engineer" as a "just get it done programmer." Like he said, they're pretty boys that just look pretty, ie they're rare and have a special balance of pragmatism. JWZ guys are the kinds of wizards you might never work with. We're also talking about a fairly specialized position Netscape was in, that was a company that made a huge amount of money. Have the twitters and facebooks of today made any money yet? Some of those guys at netscape got rich, what can you say to that? They've got scoreboard.
"Just get it done programmers" are a scourge. Most of them have no business deciding which corners to cut, let alone how much to cut them by. There is definitely a balance to achieve. Are you going to ship a "3.0?" Are you building a company to last 5 or 10 years? Or one to last as long as it takes to make the money back and sell? Is this a product you're prepared to get dirty fighting competition with or do you just not care? You never want to over-engineer but cutting too many corners is far worse. If you're a low investment startup with a decent idea, do you honestly think you can put out something that works 50% of the time and even have a shot at a 2.0? Maybe if you've got a proven wizard that spins money out of thin air you duct tape the whole thing like he thinks you should.
If you have investors and you slam out a mediocre 1.0 in like 3 months, will they really sit back for 12 months while you "engineer" 2.0? Or do they want 2.0 in another 3 months?
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I don't think he sees a "duct tape engineer" as a "just get it done programmer." Like he said, they're pretty boys that just look pretty, ie they're rare and have a special balance of pragmatism. JWZ guys are the kinds of wizards you might never work with. We're also talking about a fairly specialized position Netscape was in, that was a company that made a huge amount of money. Have the twitters and facebooks of today made any money yet? Some of those guys at netscape got rich, what can you say to that? They've got scoreboard.
"Just get it done programmers" are a scourge. Most of them have no business deciding which corners to cut, let alone how much to cut them by. There is definitely a balance to achieve. Are you going to ship a "3.0?" Are you building a company to last 5 or 10 years? Or one to last as long as it takes to make the money back and sell? Is this a product you're prepared to get dirty fighting competition with or do you just not care? You never want to over-engineer but cutting too many corners is far worse. If you're a low investment startup with a decent idea, do you honestly think you can put out something that works 50% of the time and even have a shot at a 2.0? Maybe if you've got a proven wizard that spins money out of thin air you duct tape the whole thing like he thinks you should.
If you have investors and you slam out a mediocre 1.0 in like 3 months, will they really sit back for 12 months while you "engineer" 2.0? Or do they want 2.0 in another 3 months?