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Something that has always puzzled me: how do so many incompetent CTOs get into the ground floor of startups? I've met more than one and I just don't understand

Something that has always puzzled me: how do so many incompetent CTOs get into the ground floor of startups? I've met more than one and I just don't understand it. There's readily many extremely competent technical people I know who want to start a company but have no idea. How could a CEO find an investor and not find a tech person who can foster/grow a team of engineers?

stavros 5y ago
Because "CTO co-founder" means "person who will program for just equity".
aynyc 5y ago
Because they are friends with CEO/board/investors. I interviewed three startups that are exactly like that. One of the CTO asked how I would validate US zip code. I told him there are around 42K zip code, just store them in a hashmap and do lookups. He thought I was crazy and insist on Trie tree.
- gravypod 5y ago
  I've spoken to some who say they need real time stream processing off of MQTT backed by a Spark cluster..... To store ~10 messages/second. I've reduced infra costs and improved perf by just turning it into an API with a retry on the client and storing into a database. After I left, I hear he's rebuilding the Apache Spark data pipeline stuff "so we can scale". (This problem they were solving was embarrassingly parallel and could have been shared like crazy to make it way cheaper to host)
- walshemj 5y ago
  And this is a solved problem I remember working on a product that did UK Postcode validation 20 years ago and we brought in a product to do that for us. Just update the US version of the PAF file every month.
devoutsalsa 5y ago
If you’re a nontechnical founder looking for a partner, at a certain point you’ll learn to work with anyone who will pay attention to you at a price you can pay. Source: was a nontechnical founder at one point.
spfzero 5y ago
Many startups are basically a group of people who already knew each other. When one of them is any kind of technical, that's the CTO. The others aren't and so they don't have a way to vet technical people even if they wanted to. When a startup is the founders' first one, unless they are very experienced, you are looking at long odds even if the idea is great. The reason is, no business experience. Like not understanding that you only demo things you've already tried.
Yoric 5y ago
I've seen at least one CEO going through several CTOs until he found one who would say "yes" to everything and make the proper impressed noises when the CEO showed their latest iDevice. Needless to say, that wasn't ideal.
spamizbad 5y ago
Startup founding teams are not a meritocracy. So it's not uncommon to see someone who is functionally a junior developer become the company's CTO because they were the only founder who knew how to code. I've also seen CEO's appoint what I can only describe technical yes-men to this position. eg: "I have a product described in this 20 slide power point. No real mockups or anything. Can I launch in 6 months?" - The first person to tell them yes got the job.
dreyfan 5y ago
> how do so many incompetent CTOs get into the ground floor of startups? You start a company, hire your buddy, and call yourself a CEO and CTO.
- walshemj 5y ago
  Or get 50k from Daddy and play at being entrepreneur - I remember hearing that at First Tuesday back in the day (late 90's)
indymike 5y ago
> how do so many incompetent CTOs get into the ground floor of startups? To start, there really aren't CEOs and most startups until they have 20-30 employees. There are only founders. Maybe they have some management experience, maybe not. Once you do get big enough you need and can afford a CEO, sometimes a founder grows into the role. Sometimes not. >How could a CEO find an investor and not find a tech person who can foster/grow a team of engineers? I've been on the other side. I can build a great engineering team. I had to find a cofounder that was good at finding investors to make my current startup go.

stavros 5y ago

Because "CTO co-founder" means "person who will program for just equity".

aynyc 5y ago

Because they are friends with CEO/board/investors. I interviewed three startups that are exactly like that. One of the CTO asked how I would validate US zip code. I told him there are around 42K zip code, just store them in a hashmap and do lookups. He thought I was crazy and insist on Trie tree.

gravypod 5y ago
I've spoken to some who say they need real time stream processing off of MQTT backed by a Spark cluster..... To store ~10 messages/second. I've reduced infra costs and improved perf by just turning it into an API with a retry on the client and storing into a database. After I left, I hear he's rebuilding the Apache Spark data pipeline stuff "so we can scale". (This problem they were solving was embarrassingly parallel and could have been shared like crazy to make it way cheaper to host)
walshemj 5y ago
And this is a solved problem I remember working on a product that did UK Postcode validation 20 years ago and we brought in a product to do that for us. Just update the US version of the PAF file every month.

devoutsalsa 5y ago

If you’re a nontechnical founder looking for a partner, at a certain point you’ll learn to work with anyone who will pay attention to you at a price you can pay. Source: was a nontechnical founder at one point.

spfzero 5y ago

Many startups are basically a group of people who already knew each other. When one of them is any kind of technical, that's the CTO. The others aren't and so they don't have a way to vet technical people even if they wanted to. When a startup is the founders' first one, unless they are very experienced, you are looking at long odds even if the idea is great. The reason is, no business experience. Like not understanding that you only demo things you've already tried.

Yoric 5y ago

I've seen at least one CEO going through several CTOs until he found one who would say "yes" to everything and make the proper impressed noises when the CEO showed their latest iDevice. Needless to say, that wasn't ideal.

spamizbad 5y ago

Startup founding teams are not a meritocracy. So it's not uncommon to see someone who is functionally a junior developer become the company's CTO because they were the only founder who knew how to code. I've also seen CEO's appoint what I can only describe technical yes-men to this position. eg: "I have a product described in this 20 slide power point. No real mockups or anything. Can I launch in 6 months?" - The first person to tell them yes got the job.

dreyfan 5y ago

> how do so many incompetent CTOs get into the ground floor of startups? You start a company, hire your buddy, and call yourself a CEO and CTO.

walshemj 5y ago
Or get 50k from Daddy and play at being entrepreneur - I remember hearing that at First Tuesday back in the day (late 90's)

indymike 5y ago

> how do so many incompetent CTOs get into the ground floor of startups? To start, there really aren't CEOs and most startups until they have 20-30 employees. There are only founders. Maybe they have some management experience, maybe not. Once you do get big enough you need and can afford a CEO, sometimes a founder grows into the role. Sometimes not. >How could a CEO find an investor and not find a tech person who can foster/grow a team of engineers? I've been on the other side. I can build a great engineering team. I had to find a cofounder that was good at finding investors to make my current startup go.