4 ms·

How can someone become a CTO without having any clue about tech?

rogerkirkness 8y ago
In a big enough company where software isn't the product that just means they know the tech that applies to that company. The CIO is probably a fearful late career IT politician and the CTO could have spent 40 years progressively learning more about washing machines or planes.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  That's pretty much it. There is also a widespread belief that software development is "IT" which means that an initiative to implement cloud systems gets led by people who have experience with desktop deployments or firewall setup. There is a lot of politics around budgets so the IT department won't let go of that power.
  - pdelgallego 8y ago
    I read in Werners Vogels blog (amazon CTO), that there are four types of CTOs [1] based on Berray and Sampath paper. [2] * Infrastructure Manager * Technology Visionary and Operations Manager * External Facing Technologist * Big Thinker [1] https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/07/the_different_cto_roles.html https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/07/the_different_c... [2] http://www.brixtonspa.com/Career/The_Role_of_the_CTO_4Models.pdf http://www.brixtonspa.com/Career/The_Role_of_the_CTO_4Models...
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      That list is not exhaustive. One might also encounter "Peter Principle Beneficiary".
- Dig1t 8y ago
  Another bit that not many people know is that CTOs at big non-tech corps can just pay a consultant to literally tell them what to do (most of the big banks do this) and consulting firms make a ton of money providing this service (namely places like Deloitte etc).
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I have the feeling that's how IT is done at my company. They have a huge number of outsourced contractors in India and the US and not very many people who really understand technology and can move things forward.
- calewis 8y ago
  “IT politician” is a great phrase, I will be stealing that - thanks!
mtgx 8y ago
Or a security chief without any clue about tech (let alone security): https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/09/15/1910200/equifax-ceo-hired-a-music-major-as-the-companys-chief-security-officer https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/09/15/1910200/equifax-ceo-h...
- detaro 8y ago
  It's still relatively common for people in IT in general and security specifically to have no formal background in it, so citing what someone did ages ago in university isn't all that convincing to establish lack of "clue about tech".
hackernews31242 8y ago
I have worked with a lot of CTOs or similar. Sometimes CTO is a title that can approve large budgets and an effective CTO is actually their direct report. Being a CTO is less about technology and more about understanding the global technical landscape, accounting and legal implications to large budget decision making. If I, for example, choose Microsoft as a vendor will that impact our Pacific market and if so what is the cost benefit? These are not trivial choices. To an extent a lot of the job is risk mitigation, reducing liability for the company. A good analogy would be a CEO of a shipping company not knowing how to sail. They will know costs of the voyage, costs associated with the voyage, etc. but not the day to day of how a ship operates. And they don’t need to. If anyone has worked with a micromanager they’d appreciate this.
- JamesBarney 8y ago
  Sure but sometimes this lack of knowledge will cripple a company. I've had a VP(who had a role similar to the cto for the department) who picked what time series database we should use based on this technology being the best one from a business standpoint. Unfortunately the technology was so bad from a technical standpoint that every single project that used it had it's budget and timeline explode 4-6x. This seems like an exaggeration but it isn't. One literally wrote a working application in 6 months then was mandated to move to the new technology (basically rewriting the application) and they spent 2 years rewriting while still leverage a lot of the code they already wrote. And I feel like 100s of these decision are made everyday by executives who oversee but don't grok software.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - scottlocklin 8y ago
    Out of more than idle curiosity, what was the TSDB?
    - JamesBarney 8y ago
      I would say but it's a small proprietary one that only the company I was working for used. So mentioning it doesn't help any devs avoid a mistake and outs the project.
shaklee3 8y ago
It's more about the degree than practical reasons in many cases.
Spooky23 8y ago
Business analysts, attorneys, finance people and IT turned PM/administrative all manage to rise to high technical positions due to business savvy and political ability. I worked in a place with a CIO who didn’t know how to operate a TV. If you aren’t a tech company, it’s often a liability to have too much tech domain knowledge.

In a big enough company where software isn't the product that just means they know the tech that applies to that company. The CIO is probably a fearful late career IT politician and the CTO could have spent 40 years progressively learning more about washing machines or planes.

maxxxxx 8y ago
That's pretty much it. There is also a widespread belief that software development is "IT" which means that an initiative to implement cloud systems gets led by people who have experience with desktop deployments or firewall setup. There is a lot of politics around budgets so the IT department won't let go of that power.
- pdelgallego 8y ago
  I read in Werners Vogels blog (amazon CTO), that there are four types of CTOs [1] based on Berray and Sampath paper. [2] * Infrastructure Manager * Technology Visionary and Operations Manager * External Facing Technologist * Big Thinker [1] https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/07/the_different_cto_roles.html https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/07/the_different_c... [2] http://www.brixtonspa.com/Career/The_Role_of_the_CTO_4Models.pdf http://www.brixtonspa.com/Career/The_Role_of_the_CTO_4Models...
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    That list is not exhaustive. One might also encounter "Peter Principle Beneficiary".
Dig1t 8y ago
Another bit that not many people know is that CTOs at big non-tech corps can just pay a consultant to literally tell them what to do (most of the big banks do this) and consulting firms make a ton of money providing this service (namely places like Deloitte etc).
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  I have the feeling that's how IT is done at my company. They have a huge number of outsourced contractors in India and the US and not very many people who really understand technology and can move things forward.
calewis 8y ago
“IT politician” is a great phrase, I will be stealing that - thanks!

mtgx 8y ago

Or a security chief without any clue about tech (let alone security): https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/09/15/1910200/equifax-ceo-hired-a-music-major-as-the-companys-chief-security-officer https://it.slashdot.org/story/17/09/15/1910200/equifax-ceo-h...

detaro 8y ago
It's still relatively common for people in IT in general and security specifically to have no formal background in it, so citing what someone did ages ago in university isn't all that convincing to establish lack of "clue about tech".

hackernews31242 8y ago

I have worked with a lot of CTOs or similar. Sometimes CTO is a title that can approve large budgets and an effective CTO is actually their direct report. Being a CTO is less about technology and more about understanding the global technical landscape, accounting and legal implications to large budget decision making. If I, for example, choose Microsoft as a vendor will that impact our Pacific market and if so what is the cost benefit? These are not trivial choices. To an extent a lot of the job is risk mitigation, reducing liability for the company. A good analogy would be a CEO of a shipping company not knowing how to sail. They will know costs of the voyage, costs associated with the voyage, etc. but not the day to day of how a ship operates. And they don’t need to. If anyone has worked with a micromanager they’d appreciate this.

JamesBarney 8y ago
Sure but sometimes this lack of knowledge will cripple a company. I've had a VP(who had a role similar to the cto for the department) who picked what time series database we should use based on this technology being the best one from a business standpoint. Unfortunately the technology was so bad from a technical standpoint that every single project that used it had it's budget and timeline explode 4-6x. This seems like an exaggeration but it isn't. One literally wrote a working application in 6 months then was mandated to move to the new technology (basically rewriting the application) and they spent 2 years rewriting while still leverage a lot of the code they already wrote. And I feel like 100s of these decision are made everyday by executives who oversee but don't grok software.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  Out of more than idle curiosity, what was the TSDB?
  - JamesBarney 8y ago
    I would say but it's a small proprietary one that only the company I was working for used. So mentioning it doesn't help any devs avoid a mistake and outs the project.

shaklee3 8y ago

It's more about the degree than practical reasons in many cases.

Spooky23 8y ago

Business analysts, attorneys, finance people and IT turned PM/administrative all manage to rise to high technical positions due to business savvy and political ability. I worked in a place with a CIO who didn’t know how to operate a TV. If you aren’t a tech company, it’s often a liability to have too much tech domain knowledge.