Salespeople vs. developers in a software startup

Joel Spolsky is one of my heroes, partly because I strongly agree with his people-first philosophy of management, partly because his flagship product, FogBugz, is a work of genius (calculates ship dates as a probability curve, not a binary event), and most of all because Joel has built a successful software company in one of the most overcrowded fields (bug tracking software) while living and working in one of the highest-rent cities in the world (NYC).

Joel’s latest is perhaps the single most memorable thing I have ever read on the subject of software quality and marketing. If you’re starting or running a software business, Joel on Headcount will be well worth the 2 minutes it takes to read it.