Don't overindex on technical skills

There are a lot of people out there who are good at talking the talk - sleazy sales and marketing people who know how to put lipstick on a donkey and sell ideas or products that have no substance.

This gives marketing and sales a bad name.

But on the flip side of the coin, there are many extraordinary engineers out there who build stuff 24/7 and never tell anyone about it!

It’s good to balance building stuff and telling people about it. If you build the perfect product and you have no users, have you really helped anyone? If you tell everyone you’ve built the perfect product and actually it’s just vapourware, maybe that’s worse?

Read To Sell is Human and gain some respect for experts in other fields even if their fields tend to be dominated by bullshitters.

This is true whether you’re building a business, trying to get a job, or even just want to be better respected (or promoted) at your current gig. Technical skills are cool, but they can’t exist in a vaccuum.