Ask HN: Biz folks learning how to hack?

It’s funny when I think about the topic of my question now.

Traditionally, engineers, hackers and techies would seek to pick up managerial skills to advance their carrier, well at least in stupid boring-suited-corporate-fortune-1000.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe leadership skills are indispensible for founders. However, the rapid development of technology and internet is pushing the other way around – Biz folks learning to hack.

It’s been pushing me since awhile now, and before jumping off the cliff, I really would appreciate your help in where and how to start climbing up with a bag of programming/hacking skills.

A bit about myself, I am from Algeria. I am not entirely a “suit” person, but my focus has been on leadership, management and language- teaching throughout the past 7 years. I co-founded a social start-up of an international student organization.

Funny enough, I first joined university majoring CS but then later switched to statistics – don’t ask me why, I have no idea how I made that decision, I guess it was because I started to be attracted to business and leadership. Any way my 1 year CS at university allowed me to gain some knowledge in Pascal algorithms and math.

I am not seeking to learn hacking simply because I have to but rather I want to – It is beautiful to have that ability to help build the pr- oduct you have in mind (YC folks make a strong point here).

I do have 2 business ideas, and I am thinking of approaching 2 of my techie friends to possibly apply for the upcoming YC summer batch but I am more heading towards bringing the idea to life first then apply next times to YC, allowing myself to gain some hacking skills.

So Hackers, how should I start this journey off?

Merci d’avance

P.S: programming skills I am looking for tend to be around web development.