Last thing we need is another mash up, but just one more on a pile of useless names only helps people (read marketing professionals) keep their jobs. I’ve always wanted to be an engineer, not a train driver, but somebody who makes stuff from known principals, whether with chemicals…ala Chemical Engineer, or mechanical things..ala Mechanical Engineer, or computers…ala…uh..well, Computer Engineer?…hmmm..maybe, maybe not.

Computer Engineers come in so many varieties that it is hard, although I’ll try, to stereotype two kinds.There is corporate engineer, which is just Dilbert and Wally, and this type loves the Dilbert Cartoon ‘cause it so damn true, you know the bosses and marketing people who don’t know anything…haha..well, enjoy that job my friend, speaking in code that’s worse than the code you write.

Then there is the Entrepre-neer.One that laughs at Dilbert and Wally.They do something valuable every day, even if they never use the idea or the code they wrote, they, at a minimum, avoided a meeting, project plans and they know at least one idea NOT to do.What happens next is the best part, they move on to the NEXT idea, with no approvals, no meetings and no project plans.They care about people; the willingness to solve “pain” is the Entrepreneur in them and the skills to know how is the Engineer.

I like these types of people but they suffer from something I wish I could fix, skepticism, cynical, sarcastic views of business.I know why too…because most business people are not worth their time.Business people, even the entrepreneurial kind, don’t have the capacity to learn code, some do but most don’t.But non-dilbert-wally-engineers DO have the capacity to learn business, so often they get stuck with doing everything.This is impossible, so therefore, less ideas get done, less ideas become successful, defined as solving pain, not necessarily making lots of money.

So, I think the perfect startup team is an engineer who is an entrepreneur and an entrepreneur who wants to be an engineer and of course a train driver, just for fun.