I know it was a "stupid" question. But, sometimes I do that in the hopes that someone will provide a guide to a better understanding of the topic. Plus, HN is a good place for anecdotal stuff and "war stories" that are hard to find on other parts of the WWW.

I think it's a fair question. It's not an industry you hear lots about day to day, so the average person has no idea what's involved other than "they make ads".

I've worked in large companies with 20+ person Marketing/PR departments and I'm not actually sure what their day to day job entails, and would totally be curious to know more. It's a major part of society these days, whether we love it or hate it. We all know IT has phone support roles, application development, system admins, project managers, etc... but I couldn't really tell you what all the different roles are in marketing.

Marketing is extremely technical these days, IMO. Learning to work with API's and even learning Python seems like it would really help anyone in most fields.