I very much agree. But I think it still leaves a problem. In my experience, sometimes the camps of 'business' and 'development' find themselves unable to have a conversation on common ground, and that makes the "passion+curiosity" test difficult to do. This often exhibits itself through language (one or both uses words the other cant understand), which maybe a symptom of domain protection.
My advice to someone who is trying to find someone who has a different skill set to theirs: find a way of talking about your domain in a way that can be understood by a bright lay-person. Then encourage them to do the same with their domain. If they can't / won't do that, then move on. If they can do it, then you can have meaningful conversations in which you can figure whether your goals are aligned, and how you can each help reach those goals. From there, it should be obvious whether you want to work with them (assuming they aren't lying through their teeth :)
I figured out quickly that the technical guy was pretty bright, but I never got a hand on the other guy. He exhibited behaviors that I associate with idiocy or flat-out frat boy douchebaggery: making things up, pretending to understand things he didn't, ridiculing ideas that he didn't even pretend to understand (I'm not making that up), bragging about himself, continuing stories after his listener had pointed out that their premise was factually untrue, and so on. Yet occasionally he said something that made me think no, a stupid person could never have said that. Plus the technical guy, who apparently knew him well, was taking all of this douchebaggery in stride and was talking to him as if he were an intellectual equal, not holding back or simplifying at all. The technical guy had apparently known this guy long enough to realize that he was much smarter than he seemed.
Even the fact that the technical guy consistently, quietly corrected the other guy's facts -- and then sat patiently while the guy finished his story despite the fact that the correction removed both the point and the credibility of the story -- seemed to indicate that they had a considerable level of mutual comfort and respect. I mean, if the guy had really been a complete idiot, the technical guy would not have bothered correcting him so often. Not to mention that an arrogant idiot would not have been so tolerant of correction as this guy was.
Anyway, that whole story was just to illustrate that there is a huge cultural gap between technical people and nontechnical people. The way that guy acted, I would not have trusted him to feed my goldfish. Apparently, though, he was a bright guy who had learned a different set of social mores.
100% agree. It's sometimes staggering how big it is. My point is that a small amount of effort can go a long way to bridging the divide, and using common language is a powerful first step.
They make passionate idiots too.
Although, experience would make it easier to determine if the relative lack of clue is due to the former or the latter, or perhaps both. The former is far easier to rectify, but only if they also have the curiosity and passion that rokhayakebe mentions.
Early in the game, a startup cannot afford this guy. In such a case the hacker-founder(s) should opt for "passion+curiosity" over "skills".
This new addition to your team will be your "chief everything else officer". It does not stop at locating leads and calling them, creating new distribution channels, doing some grass root marketing/advertising, it also includes blogging, contacting bloggers, writers, local media channels (if that applies) and anything that at the end of the shift could increase your paying customers.
A passionate and curious, yet inexperienced guy can do all this and, on a few occasions, better than the guy who has been doing it for 15 years and is quite arrogant about that 1 million dollar sale he (accidentally) closed during his flight to Italy.