You're correct, they're most definitely not projects that an investor would invest in. However, if I am going to invest in someone, I want to know they can code. I want to look at programs they wrote while they were in college, or working a job. If I see a novel solution, my confidence in my investee goes way up.
Tons of people have great ideas, but their success is going to be determined by how well they can code. When you say that startups don't fail because of a lack of technical expertise, you're right in a limited sense. Startups of decent calibur will not fail because the founders don't know closures, continuations, design patterns, etc; they'll still be able to build products. They just wont have the vision to know the full range of products they are capable of building. If that's the case, you'll only last as long as it takes for a better hacker to enter the market. Experts Exchange being overtaken by Stack Overflow is a perfect example. Same idea, but because actual hackers are running Stack Overflow, it's trouncing Experts Exchange, with no signs of slowing down.
What makes you think Stack Overflow has any technical advantage over Experts Exchange? And, what makes you think their growth rates are at all correlated?
As far as I can tell Stack Overflow is a perfect example of a site where technical talent is almost irrelevant. Just like this site. We're not here because this site is written in Arc. We're here because of the community.
If not technical in terms of CPU cycles, technical in terms of design. For one, I don't have to scroll all the way to the bottom of Stack Overflow to see the answers to a question. Stack Overflow also loads far faster, and has unobtrusive ads. These are things that hackers understand are important, and the suits have a difficult time understanding.
Tons of people have great ideas, but their success is going to be determined by how well they can code. When you say that startups don't fail because of a lack of technical expertise, you're right in a limited sense. Startups of decent calibur will not fail because the founders don't know closures, continuations, design patterns, etc; they'll still be able to build products. They just wont have the vision to know the full range of products they are capable of building. If that's the case, you'll only last as long as it takes for a better hacker to enter the market. Experts Exchange being overtaken by Stack Overflow is a perfect example. Same idea, but because actual hackers are running Stack Overflow, it's trouncing Experts Exchange, with no signs of slowing down.