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The onramp for finance is accounting. There is no other right answer. This is also essential for general business administration. Accounting is a huge topic; b

The onramp for finance is accounting. There is no other right answer. This is also essential for general business administration. Accounting is a huge topic; being able to read financial statements is a good, first tangible exercise. Best book I have found for this is Thomas Ittelson, Financial Statements. Using double-entry accounting methods for your own financials with a tool like Beancount is super helpful from a practice perspective, and appealing to an engineering mind: http://furius.ca/beancount/ http://furius.ca/beancount/ "Being able to level with CEOs and CFOs" is less about administering a business and more about being able to communicate with executives. This is essential for all technical people, whether or not they have management or executive ambitions themselves. This also is a huge topic, I would suggest starting with concise definitions of what managing is, and what being an executive is about. When you understand the concerns of the people you are communicating with, you can do so more efficiently and effectively. From a mindset perspective I would start with Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive, and since everyone is their own CEO, his book Managing Oneself is very valuable. These are all classic texts, still valuable and relevant, as these topics are as old as the hills. Good luck.

gen220 6y ago
I would like to strongly second your recommendations regarding accounting. Double entry accounting is the root of all finance. If you understand it well enough to keep accurate accounts of your personal finances (credit cards, 401k, salary, pre/post-tax expenses, etc), you understand it well enough to fumble through a financial statement. I’d plug GNU Ledger, but really any double entry accounting software is good to get started.
- EvanAnderson 6y ago
  Came here to say this, too. I think at least a 100-level knowledge of account is beneficial to nearly every developer. Bookkeeping is, arguably, one of the oldest and longest-practiced "data processing" disciplines. It seems arbitrary and somewhat old-fashioned until you grok the reasoning and history behind it (double-entry sourced from summaries of various different "journals" to facilitate separation of duties, closing periods and rolling-up detail entries into totals because human computational power is limited, an equation that balances implicitly when there aren't entry errors, etc.) From a personal finance perspective I think everyone should get some training in account but, sadly, that's probably way too optimistic of an attitude.
- znpy 6y ago
  What's the opinion about gnucash?
  - gen220 6y ago
    Big caveat that I’ve never seriously tried using it, but my perspective is that GNUCash and GNU Ledger have different target audiences. The way I think of it is (Cash is to LibreOffice) as (Ledger is to some combination of Vim and SQLite). Cash aims to replace non-free accounting software, Ledger is both a file format and a general purpose tool for parsing and transforming that file format, that is designed for accounting but can be used to drive a wide variety of applications.
wtvanhest 6y ago
CTOs at most Fortune 500 companies do not need a strong working knowledge of double entry accounting beyond accruals and capex and how it depreciates. You can be ahead of most technology peers by simply knowing the basics of accrual accounting. How to learn it? When working on a project, talk to the finance person you work with about the accrual process. They will be happy you asked. If they don’t help, google “when should I accrue an expense or revenue” Once you get that down, you will want to spend a little time doing some NPV practice. When it comes time to getting your project approved, you want to show benefits in your NPV model. 99% of this is not the math around the NPV, that part is easy. The hard part is getting business partners onboard with supporting the benefits case. Most finance people at large companies are mainly doing basic math, but doing it well and spelling out logic in a small program called a financial model. The best way to get good at this besides working in finance is to model everything you can. Small widget models are the key to building that skill
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  Absolutely, very few CTOs in my experience understand double entry or know how to read a balance sheet. To their detriment, IMO, but there are all kinds of effective CTOs across all kinds of orgs. But OP was asking for guidance in learning how to engage on those topics- as opposed to communicating about technical things to that audience. Hence the recommendations. I agree about the value of NPV, tho I would argue that NPV without some accounting chops is tricky waters. "Value" in that context has an accounting meaning, not the largely useless goofy ROI calculations that tech folks usually create.
  - wtvanhest 6y ago
    People are too quick to recommend accounting and finance books. Or... recommend super complex material because they think the subject is complex. If his/her goal is to learn what it takes to be more effective at the finance piece, they should follow my advice. If they want to go deeper for fun later, they can, but it won’t have as much value as improving the 3 things I mentioned.
    - 6y ago
drunkpotato 6y ago
The two books on accounting I liked (no affiliation): Accounting Made Simple: Accounting Explained in 100 Pages or Less by Mike Piper How to Read a Balance Sheet: The Bottom Line on What You Need to Know about Cash Flow, Assets, Debt, Equity, Profit...and How It all Comes Together by Rick Makoujy Then I started doing my personal finances on GnuCash, and now on ledger-cli. It's helped a lot both professionally and personally.
- jonahbenton 6y ago
  Agree, have seen both and like them too. Cheers.
arthurcolle 6y ago
I have always felt like the thought that comes from engineers (particularly in CS/SWE) that business/finance isn't technical to be a pretty trite attitude. Financial statement analysis is very technical, and things like operations research which many executives have come out of is a highly mathematical subject matter. Just my thoughts.
- sukilot 6y ago
  Business and Finance are not the same thing. "Business and Finance" is like saying "Apps and Code" Before computers, many many people like today's computer programmers would be accountants, quants and other financial professionals (and engineers).
  - arthurcolle 6y ago
    No it's not. Business management and finance obviously don't mean the same thing. If that wasn't clear, sorry for the confusion.
demadog 6y ago
Finance for Non-Financial Managers is a very well written and approachable book with a good amount of humor. It’s concise enough to not waste your time and doesn’t assume you have a finance background. Great launching off book! https://www.amazon.com/Finance-Non-Financial-Managers-Briefcase-Books/dp/0071413774 https://www.amazon.com/Finance-Non-Financial-Managers-Briefc...

gen220 6y ago

I would like to strongly second your recommendations regarding accounting. Double entry accounting is the root of all finance. If you understand it well enough to keep accurate accounts of your personal finances (credit cards, 401k, salary, pre/post-tax expenses, etc), you understand it well enough to fumble through a financial statement. I’d plug GNU Ledger, but really any double entry accounting software is good to get started.

EvanAnderson 6y ago
Came here to say this, too. I think at least a 100-level knowledge of account is beneficial to nearly every developer. Bookkeeping is, arguably, one of the oldest and longest-practiced "data processing" disciplines. It seems arbitrary and somewhat old-fashioned until you grok the reasoning and history behind it (double-entry sourced from summaries of various different "journals" to facilitate separation of duties, closing periods and rolling-up detail entries into totals because human computational power is limited, an equation that balances implicitly when there aren't entry errors, etc.) From a personal finance perspective I think everyone should get some training in account but, sadly, that's probably way too optimistic of an attitude.
znpy 6y ago
What's the opinion about gnucash?
- gen220 6y ago
  Big caveat that I’ve never seriously tried using it, but my perspective is that GNUCash and GNU Ledger have different target audiences. The way I think of it is (Cash is to LibreOffice) as (Ledger is to some combination of Vim and SQLite). Cash aims to replace non-free accounting software, Ledger is both a file format and a general purpose tool for parsing and transforming that file format, that is designed for accounting but can be used to drive a wide variety of applications.

wtvanhest 6y ago

CTOs at most Fortune 500 companies do not need a strong working knowledge of double entry accounting beyond accruals and capex and how it depreciates. You can be ahead of most technology peers by simply knowing the basics of accrual accounting. How to learn it? When working on a project, talk to the finance person you work with about the accrual process. They will be happy you asked. If they don’t help, google “when should I accrue an expense or revenue” Once you get that down, you will want to spend a little time doing some NPV practice. When it comes time to getting your project approved, you want to show benefits in your NPV model. 99% of this is not the math around the NPV, that part is easy. The hard part is getting business partners onboard with supporting the benefits case. Most finance people at large companies are mainly doing basic math, but doing it well and spelling out logic in a small program called a financial model. The best way to get good at this besides working in finance is to model everything you can. Small widget models are the key to building that skill

jonahbenton 6y ago
Absolutely, very few CTOs in my experience understand double entry or know how to read a balance sheet. To their detriment, IMO, but there are all kinds of effective CTOs across all kinds of orgs. But OP was asking for guidance in learning how to engage on those topics- as opposed to communicating about technical things to that audience. Hence the recommendations. I agree about the value of NPV, tho I would argue that NPV without some accounting chops is tricky waters. "Value" in that context has an accounting meaning, not the largely useless goofy ROI calculations that tech folks usually create.
- wtvanhest 6y ago
  People are too quick to recommend accounting and finance books. Or... recommend super complex material because they think the subject is complex. If his/her goal is to learn what it takes to be more effective at the finance piece, they should follow my advice. If they want to go deeper for fun later, they can, but it won’t have as much value as improving the 3 things I mentioned.
  - 6y ago

drunkpotato 6y ago

The two books on accounting I liked (no affiliation): Accounting Made Simple: Accounting Explained in 100 Pages or Less by Mike Piper How to Read a Balance Sheet: The Bottom Line on What You Need to Know about Cash Flow, Assets, Debt, Equity, Profit...and How It all Comes Together by Rick Makoujy Then I started doing my personal finances on GnuCash, and now on ledger-cli. It's helped a lot both professionally and personally.

jonahbenton 6y ago
Agree, have seen both and like them too. Cheers.

arthurcolle 6y ago

I have always felt like the thought that comes from engineers (particularly in CS/SWE) that business/finance isn't technical to be a pretty trite attitude. Financial statement analysis is very technical, and things like operations research which many executives have come out of is a highly mathematical subject matter. Just my thoughts.

sukilot 6y ago
Business and Finance are not the same thing. "Business and Finance" is like saying "Apps and Code" Before computers, many many people like today's computer programmers would be accountants, quants and other financial professionals (and engineers).
- arthurcolle 6y ago
  No it's not. Business management and finance obviously don't mean the same thing. If that wasn't clear, sorry for the confusion.

demadog 6y ago

Finance for Non-Financial Managers is a very well written and approachable book with a good amount of humor. It’s concise enough to not waste your time and doesn’t assume you have a finance background. Great launching off book! https://www.amazon.com/Finance-Non-Financial-Managers-Briefcase-Books/dp/0071413774 https://www.amazon.com/Finance-Non-Financial-Managers-Briefc...