If the business decisions guy was also bringing money to the table, then that changes the story. But now the important contribution is the money, not the decisions.
I imagine a conversation with Mozart went something like this:
"Mozart, I want a libretto."
"What should be in it?"
"It should be about birds."
"Okay, I'll get on it."
The corresponding conversation in our world would be:
"Jack, I want a piece of software."
"What should it do?"
"It should be like a blog but every post limited to 140 characters."
"Okay, I'll get on it."
It is Mozart and Jack who end up making 99% of the design decisions. What I'm saying that once the guy hiring the creator gets so involved that a good portion of the decisions are his/hers then that's a very inefficient way to compose a piece of music or a piece of software, and you're better off doing the composing yourself. Of course in many cases marketing is more important than the technical side, but this is no different. In a startup with just a couple of people the contribution comes from the guy doing the marketing, not a guy deciding the rough marketing strategy. In a big company the influence reverses because the business decisions have a lot of leverage simply because they affect what a large number of employees are going to do. Simply put, the question you're asking is "Could twitter be done by me getting YC (and later VC) money and then hiring a programmer and a marketer?". The right question is "Why would the YC give the money to me instead of the programmer and the marketer?". Note that a perfectly valid answer for a lot of startups could be "I have connections and experience in the field" (especially for e.g. medical or payments startups), but the answer needs to be something.
I imagine a conversation with Mozart went something like this:
"Mozart, I want a libretto."
"What should be in it?"
"It should be about birds."
"Okay, I'll get on it."
The corresponding conversation in our world would be:
"Jack, I want a piece of software."
"What should it do?"
"It should be like a blog but every post limited to 140 characters."
"Okay, I'll get on it."
It is Mozart and Jack who end up making 99% of the design decisions. What I'm saying that once the guy hiring the creator gets so involved that a good portion of the decisions are his/hers then that's a very inefficient way to compose a piece of music or a piece of software, and you're better off doing the composing yourself. Of course in many cases marketing is more important than the technical side, but this is no different. In a startup with just a couple of people the contribution comes from the guy doing the marketing, not a guy deciding the rough marketing strategy. In a big company the influence reverses because the business decisions have a lot of leverage simply because they affect what a large number of employees are going to do. Simply put, the question you're asking is "Could twitter be done by me getting YC (and later VC) money and then hiring a programmer and a marketer?". The right question is "Why would the YC give the money to me instead of the programmer and the marketer?". Note that a perfectly valid answer for a lot of startups could be "I have connections and experience in the field" (especially for e.g. medical or payments startups), but the answer needs to be something.