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Hi, I'm the original author. The point of the article is as follows: there is clearly a trend towards top market-cap companies being founded by software engine

Hi, I'm the original author. The point of the article is as follows: there is clearly a trend towards top market-cap companies being founded by software engineering CEOs, but why? The data regarding the trend is pretty clear. I believe there are two reasons: 1. Software has become a global form of super infrastructure that facilitate scaling, but there's more going on. 2. I believe that guys like Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk and Gates are using software effectively to speed value fulfillment cycles – pretty much in everything they are doing, from rockets to eradicating disease, or just shipping packages. Software engineering CEOs are realizing value at faster rates, IMO, by executing well on all 4 stages of the value fulfillment cycle -- see https://iism.org/post/glossary-value-stage-82 https://iism.org/post/glossary-value-stage-82. I mean, these guys are all billionaires, so clearly the market thinks they are valuable (Larry, Sergey and Ma Huateng as well). As to why: I believe it’s the relationship between emerging infrastructure and the value fulfillment cycle. Software happens to be the emerging super infrastructure, so software engineers are naturally emerging as the next generation of industrialists. Not to say there aren’t other emerging trends of significance; but for now, software and software variants is the emerging super infrastructure. Discovery of value has always been the result of iterative discovery – software just happens to facilitate quick iterations of value attempts, and software engineer tend to be more Agile than traditional plan driven companies.

okl 6y ago
> The data regarding the trend is pretty clear. Apparently it's not, see parent comment. Doubling-down and ignoring the criticism is downright dishonest.
tinco 6y ago
8/10 companies on your list are software companies, of those 7/8 have software engineer CEO's. The only thing you've shown is that successful software companies are often led by software engineers. I bet you'll find similar patterns in other industries. Who better to have visionary leadership than an engineer who grasps the industry perfectly. I'd love to believe that software engineers make better CEO's in general, but you'd have to show me a list of companies that became successful only after hiring an ex-SE CEO, and preferably in another industry than information processing.
- UncleMeat 6y ago
  Yeah this has nothing to do with engineers having magical brains. This is 100% caused by tech companies being worth gazillions.
sradman 6y ago
Software is eating the world but you are discounting the possibility that this force is simply drawing in the best and brightest; part sorting hat and part black hole pulling in the biggest stars.
marcus_holmes 6y ago
Were the railway industrialists all railway engineers?
- sradman 6y ago
  Cornelius Vanderbilt [1] mastered steam powered shipping before tackling rail. An operator of technical machinery more than a trained engineer but relatively very technical for the 2nd Industrial Age IMO. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vanderbilt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vanderbilt
mrep 6y ago
Interesting that you propose their success is based on the value fulfillment cycle which seems like something I would be far more likely to hear from an mba/pm than a software engineer. IMO, the answer to why the biggest companies tend to be started by software engineers is far far simpler and something you can find in your ordinary econ 101 textbook. Your standard natural monopoly is one which has high fixed costs and low marginal costs such that the first one to dominate the market can usually sustain that because their ongoing costs are low while any new entrant has to pay down the high fixed costs to enter the market. While usually associated with utilities, software matches that pretty well and software companies tend to be started by software engineers. Writing software (the fixed cost) is extremely expensive as you need to pay a lot to get good engineers and you need a ton of them to handle the complexity associated with the largest markets but once you have written the software, it is relatively cheap to run (the marginal cost). Once one company starts dominating a software market, they can amortize the fixed costs across the greatest number of users and continuously invest to make their software continuously better such that it becomes almost impossible for a competitor to catch up. You can see this today with the cloud as AWS rakes in billions in profits because they have the most features, biggest head start, and most IAAS revenue while the other companies lose billions (5.6 billion for google last year for example) trying to catch up.

okl 6y ago

> The data regarding the trend is pretty clear. Apparently it's not, see parent comment. Doubling-down and ignoring the criticism is downright dishonest.

tinco 6y ago

8/10 companies on your list are software companies, of those 7/8 have software engineer CEO's. The only thing you've shown is that successful software companies are often led by software engineers. I bet you'll find similar patterns in other industries. Who better to have visionary leadership than an engineer who grasps the industry perfectly. I'd love to believe that software engineers make better CEO's in general, but you'd have to show me a list of companies that became successful only after hiring an ex-SE CEO, and preferably in another industry than information processing.

UncleMeat 6y ago
Yeah this has nothing to do with engineers having magical brains. This is 100% caused by tech companies being worth gazillions.

sradman 6y ago

Software is eating the world but you are discounting the possibility that this force is simply drawing in the best and brightest; part sorting hat and part black hole pulling in the biggest stars.

marcus_holmes 6y ago

Were the railway industrialists all railway engineers?

sradman 6y ago
Cornelius Vanderbilt [1] mastered steam powered shipping before tackling rail. An operator of technical machinery more than a trained engineer but relatively very technical for the 2nd Industrial Age IMO. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vanderbilt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Vanderbilt

mrep 6y ago

Interesting that you propose their success is based on the value fulfillment cycle which seems like something I would be far more likely to hear from an mba/pm than a software engineer. IMO, the answer to why the biggest companies tend to be started by software engineers is far far simpler and something you can find in your ordinary econ 101 textbook. Your standard natural monopoly is one which has high fixed costs and low marginal costs such that the first one to dominate the market can usually sustain that because their ongoing costs are low while any new entrant has to pay down the high fixed costs to enter the market. While usually associated with utilities, software matches that pretty well and software companies tend to be started by software engineers. Writing software (the fixed cost) is extremely expensive as you need to pay a lot to get good engineers and you need a ton of them to handle the complexity associated with the largest markets but once you have written the software, it is relatively cheap to run (the marginal cost). Once one company starts dominating a software market, they can amortize the fixed costs across the greatest number of users and continuously invest to make their software continuously better such that it becomes almost impossible for a competitor to catch up. You can see this today with the cloud as AWS rakes in billions in profits because they have the most features, biggest head start, and most IAAS revenue while the other companies lose billions (5.6 billion for google last year for example) trying to catch up.