"Further, many business students are aggressive and gregarious, many programmers are socially awkward..."
I can generally agree with the article, but the old, old stereotypes aren't really helping, are they? I see very few "socially awkward" programmers in my work. They might not be game-show hosts, but they're not Rain Man either. As the author points out in the footnote, if you can master computing arcana, you can pick up the basic ideas around business and accounting fairly quickly.
What I mean to say is that successful programmers will try business, but what successful business people try engineering? But "trying to" is not a sufficient condition for "succeeding at."
Like I said, generally I agree with the article, and it makes some good points. But the button-pusher for me (and the point I'm trying to make) is that labeling the technically adept as "socially awkward" is about as acceptable as saying that black people have "soul", poor people have "dignity", women are more "empathetic", and business-people are "aggressive", as though the one naturally leads to another. I honestly don't recognise the stereotype of the "socially awkward" programmer, and feel it's unhelpful to keep recycling and perpetuating it.
I wish that there was some way to discuss a stereotype without assuming some responsibility for perpetuating it, but I don't know of such a way.
But stereotypes shouldn't be taboo for reasonable discussion here. That something is uncomfortable to talk about doesn't make it false or nonsense. In fact, I find that uncomfortable subjects are most interesting to explore because they force you to consider what you otherwise prefer not to believe.
I can generally agree with the article, but the old, old stereotypes aren't really helping, are they? I see very few "socially awkward" programmers in my work. They might not be game-show hosts, but they're not Rain Man either. As the author points out in the footnote, if you can master computing arcana, you can pick up the basic ideas around business and accounting fairly quickly.