Re:Ask HN: What is the definition of a “founding engineer”?
by davidajackson on Wednesday July 13, 2022 @06:44PM
(#32089667)
My guess would be it's a combination of:
1. Many good eng's might not have the skills to fundraise/run the business side, and with them more often having friends that are also eng's maybe there's less likely to be a match to have a business counterpart. That coupled with missing domain knowledge means that some eng's jump to take those jobs. However I have heard from a successful founder that the early engineers that are good are very hard to attract.
2. Loss aversion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion; people more often seek to avoid downside rather than pursue upside.
> Caveat if you don't have the skills required to start the company, then there's no opportunity cost and the opportunity cost exists somewhere else if you have other skills. I did notice how several founders were very good at fundraising, instead of writing code -- and it was equally important.
Totally agree, but that's why I brought up the example of the AirBnB cofounder. I'm assuming among the three of them that probably Brian Chesky and/or Joe Gebbia were the fundraisers and Nathan was the engineering mind (don't know if that's true). I just don't understand why engineering folks would "sell themselves short" if the contribution is as equally important as fund raising, business acumen, etc.