The last statement, "you need us more than we need you" is definitely arguable.
I believe that there are aspects such as leadership, foresight and intuition that can't be taught or learnt with a college degree or from a book.
These things CAN be brought to the table by people with non-technical backgrounds and can be more valuable than all the technical background in the world, because most technical professionals can easily be replaced by the next applicant.
