Great article. I don't think we can repeat this enough:
Hard work != value. Clever code != value. Writing something hackers think is cool != value.
Sometimes I think the hardest part of startups is re-aligning our value system from what we've learned in school and society into something that's actually useful for startups.
While it can of course get annoying, hipness should not be discarded so easily.
I'd argue that the hipness of a language/tech stack is actually an important business consideration today, if only due to the short supply of good startup dev talent. Good developers have their pick of jobs right now. For instance, most of the PHP badasses I know are regularly turning down PHP work in favor of working with something newer.
After all, the smartest people like to learn more than anything else.
Creating new languages doesn't create any value. It's not solving a problem. It's just solving the same problem that has already been solved countless times before.
Very true. I've been thinking that although I started coding to make a business (tho I used to write QBasic games when I was 10 too), I developed a coder's value system.
I can't seem to keep in mind that code is a means to an end!
Hard work != value. Clever code != value. Writing something hackers think is cool != value.
Sometimes I think the hardest part of startups is re-aligning our value system from what we've learned in school and society into something that's actually useful for startups.