clusters: s-web
related: book-hackers_and_painters
https://castig.org/an-interview-with-paul-graham-hackers-painters-10-years-later/
my note
interesting
sys admin trend in new CS bros
Programming in the last 10 years is much more system administration. It’s largely installing things and piecing them together. You used to have libraries you’d have to call and stuff like that, but now you build your app by piecing together these big chunks of open source code that other people have written. And that used to be the thing that sys admins did, they installed things and programmers wrote things. But now programmers are good at installing things. And they’re proud of it, at how they can tune them properly.startups: build stuff + talk to users
talk to users = sale
a founder should have a certain lv. of technical skills to eval their programmer. if you don’t, then fine someone who does.
## **If I have a startup, but can’t code… what should I be doing?**
PG: You have to do sales. There’s two things startups need to do early on: you need to build stuff, and talk to users. So if you can’t build stuff, you have to talk to users.
And what you want to do [by talking to users] is get them to use your stuff. So whether you’re good at sales or not, if you can’t program, then sales is what you’re doing.
## **Can a non-technical founder hire developers?**
PG: It depends. There are now startups working on things that aren’t very technical at all. For example: retail businesses where the technology used is fairly generic. So yes, to some extent you can be a non-technical founder and somehow get programmers to do that stuff for you. But it’s very hard to hire programmers if you’re not a programmer yourself, because you can’t judge them.
We have had non-technical founders who have run into EXACTLY this problem: they are worried if their programmer is any good and they can’t tell.
## **So… how can you tell if a developer is good?**
PG: There’s not really any good solution. Of all the startups with solo non-technical founders that Y Combinator has funded… it’s possible that none of them are doing very well. It’s hard, very hard.
You would have to have a friend who’s a really good programmer. But then, how would you know if your friend was a really good programmer? (laughs)
If you had this friend he could jump start the process to ensure that the first couple of people are good. Then they can hire the rest. You could even get JUST ONE good person. But how do you get that one good person?
If you don’t have expertise in hiring programmers then you need to get someone who does.created on: Mon Oct 20 2025