Regarding the first question, I have been burned before by non-technical co-founders who turned the project into their own little "I want to learn how to program" experiment, while spending zero to no time actually hustling, talking to people, getting feedback, finding more early adopters, engineering requirements and so on. I have learned to be a better judge of character through that experience, and am much pickier now.
About the second one, I was actually paraphrasing something I heard Max Levchin state at one of his talks years ago. Not sure how much it's worth, given his partnership with Thiel.
About the second one, I was actually paraphrasing something I heard Max Levchin state at one of his talks years ago. Not sure how much it's worth, given his partnership with Thiel.