5 ms·

Companies should only hire entrepreneurs and engineers who has proven track record as builders as execs. Hiring people from business schools and non engineers a

Companies should only hire entrepreneurs and engineers who has proven track record as builders as execs. Hiring people from business schools and non engineers as execs is the stupidest thing you can do for long term sucess of the company. Hire builders. Not resume builders.

koonsolo 4y ago
I think this theory is proven in practice. If you look at the major tech companies, they are all run by people who programmed at some point. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, ... . However, Steve Jobs seems to be an exception here (In Dutch, we have the expression "The exception proves the rule" ;), which basically means that all theories have exceptions) I think it's very hard for non-builders to really understand the underlying processes that result in success.
- haihaibye 4y ago
  > The exception proves the rule This is also a common English proverb
  - 01acheru 4y ago
    It comes from Latin: Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis. The last part (in casibus non exceptis) is usually omitted, giving it the meaning we have now. The original meaning was a little different.
    - gradschoolfail 4y ago
      https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exception_that_proves_the_rule https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exception_that_proves_the_rul...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- nowherebeen 4y ago
  Steve Jobs had Steve Wozniak and an obsessive personality to product according to Walter Isaacson. I think those two things compensated for his lack of technical skills. Steve Wozniak is highly underrated compared to Steve Jobs and was a crucial factor to Jobs' early success.
- thinkharderdev 4y ago
  Was Bezos an engineer? I thought he was a hedge fund guy before founding Amazon.
  - vecter 4y ago
    He studied Physics at Princeton and had a technical background from what I understand.
    - crypto420_69 4y ago
      In a talk at Stanford he said that he coded up Amazon's original HTML website.
    - reducesuffering 4y ago
      His degree was in Electrical Engineering and Computer science. He was offered jobs at Intel and Bell Labs, some of the highest technical companies at the time in 1986. He worked at Fitel, a fintech startup for 2 years programming financial networks. Then he went into management.
- nemothekid 4y ago
  >Jeff Bezos Jeff Bezos was a programmer?
  - koonsolo 4y ago
    https://twitter.com/jeffbezos/status/1058012110947373057?lang=en https://twitter.com/jeffbezos/status/1058012110947373057?lan...
- dub 4y ago
  I tried working at a company with non-technical founders and leadership. I'd never do it again. It was like a poison when upper management didn't know how to hire competent engineering leaders. It seeps down into middle management and into the code and system architecture. When you're an optimistic new hire you hope that things can change and you can be a part of it, but over time it becomes increasingly hard to imagine a future with a strong and wide enough cultural shift that the company could ever have the values that make working efficiently or building simple, scalable, reliable, adaptable software possible.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    This seems like it could be handled by hiring ONE engineering leader for the engineering org - which is one spoke of the multi-spoke wheel that runs a modern day tech company. The HN crowd is biased, but it seems to overinflate the importance of IC engineering contribution vs the contributions of the collective - eng and non eng.
    - koonsolo 4y ago
      But that was my whole point, that in practice, successful companies seem to be run by the engineer, and not by some business type and a good CTO of some sort. I even forgot Mark Zuckerberg in my original post. So it seems that at the top level, you need to understand the engineering part to be successful. My guess is that the leader needs to have a vision for the product, market, but also the development. And if the last part is lacking, you cannot make up for it in the lower levels. Or maybe it's because an engineer better understands what can and can't be build, and so has a more realistic vision for the product to build. A non-engineer always needs to backtrack with an engineer how possible something is.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
ameister14 4y ago
Sheryl Sandberg - Facebook COO - Harvard MBA // David Wehner - Meta CFO - Former investment banker // Zachary Kirkhorn - Tesla CFO - Engineer, but also Harvard MBA // Brian Olavsky - Amazon CFO - Carnegie Mellon MBA // Ruth Porat - Alphabet CFO - Wharton MBA
- kderbyma 4y ago
  spooks
- blocked_again 4y ago
  I think the fact that these companies are successful inspite of this shows how good their initial product market fit and founders(CEOs) were. Even after having non builders in key leadership position these companies survived and continue to thrive. Just think about it. Business school admissions are not given on the basis on how well you can run a company long term. I think companies like coinbase can't afford to have non builders in leadership because they don't have a strong product market fit compared to Facebook, Tesla cars, AWS etc.
  - ameister14 4y ago
    Almost every public company has a CFO and/or COO that has an MBA. It's not an 'in spite of;' financials get complicated as do business operations and those two things are what an MBA is for, other than networking. Also, I know a lot of entrepreneurial people that do not do very well when the company gets beyond a certain size. They can't operate within a system of greater restriction and don't want to follow best practices for employees. Managers are often not good builders and builders aren't always good managers.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    Addendums to fix the initial assessment? It's overrated that engineers and entrepreneurs can self manage. Look at any team of engineers without a good EM or PM
- dogman144 4y ago
  going to have to counter you on the Kirkhorn one, nary a line of code in sight unless you've got something else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Kirkhorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Kirkhorn

koonsolo 4y ago

I think this theory is proven in practice. If you look at the major tech companies, they are all run by people who programmed at some point. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, ... . However, Steve Jobs seems to be an exception here (In Dutch, we have the expression "The exception proves the rule" ;), which basically means that all theories have exceptions) I think it's very hard for non-builders to really understand the underlying processes that result in success.

haihaibye 4y ago
> The exception proves the rule This is also a common English proverb
- 01acheru 4y ago
  It comes from Latin: Exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis. The last part (in casibus non exceptis) is usually omitted, giving it the meaning we have now. The original meaning was a little different.
  - gradschoolfail 4y ago
    https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exception_that_proves_the_rule https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exception_that_proves_the_rul...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
nowherebeen 4y ago
Steve Jobs had Steve Wozniak and an obsessive personality to product according to Walter Isaacson. I think those two things compensated for his lack of technical skills. Steve Wozniak is highly underrated compared to Steve Jobs and was a crucial factor to Jobs' early success.
thinkharderdev 4y ago
Was Bezos an engineer? I thought he was a hedge fund guy before founding Amazon.
- vecter 4y ago
  He studied Physics at Princeton and had a technical background from what I understand.
  - crypto420_69 4y ago
    In a talk at Stanford he said that he coded up Amazon's original HTML website.
  - reducesuffering 4y ago
    His degree was in Electrical Engineering and Computer science. He was offered jobs at Intel and Bell Labs, some of the highest technical companies at the time in 1986. He worked at Fitel, a fintech startup for 2 years programming financial networks. Then he went into management.
nemothekid 4y ago
>Jeff Bezos Jeff Bezos was a programmer?
- koonsolo 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/jeffbezos/status/1058012110947373057?lang=en https://twitter.com/jeffbezos/status/1058012110947373057?lan...
dub 4y ago
I tried working at a company with non-technical founders and leadership. I'd never do it again. It was like a poison when upper management didn't know how to hire competent engineering leaders. It seeps down into middle management and into the code and system architecture. When you're an optimistic new hire you hope that things can change and you can be a part of it, but over time it becomes increasingly hard to imagine a future with a strong and wide enough cultural shift that the company could ever have the values that make working efficiently or building simple, scalable, reliable, adaptable software possible.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  This seems like it could be handled by hiring ONE engineering leader for the engineering org - which is one spoke of the multi-spoke wheel that runs a modern day tech company. The HN crowd is biased, but it seems to overinflate the importance of IC engineering contribution vs the contributions of the collective - eng and non eng.
  - koonsolo 4y ago
    But that was my whole point, that in practice, successful companies seem to be run by the engineer, and not by some business type and a good CTO of some sort. I even forgot Mark Zuckerberg in my original post. So it seems that at the top level, you need to understand the engineering part to be successful. My guess is that the leader needs to have a vision for the product, market, but also the development. And if the last part is lacking, you cannot make up for it in the lower levels. Or maybe it's because an engineer better understands what can and can't be build, and so has a more realistic vision for the product to build. A non-engineer always needs to backtrack with an engineer how possible something is.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

ameister14 4y ago

Sheryl Sandberg - Facebook COO - Harvard MBA // David Wehner - Meta CFO - Former investment banker // Zachary Kirkhorn - Tesla CFO - Engineer, but also Harvard MBA // Brian Olavsky - Amazon CFO - Carnegie Mellon MBA // Ruth Porat - Alphabet CFO - Wharton MBA

kderbyma 4y ago
spooks
blocked_again 4y ago
I think the fact that these companies are successful inspite of this shows how good their initial product market fit and founders(CEOs) were. Even after having non builders in key leadership position these companies survived and continue to thrive. Just think about it. Business school admissions are not given on the basis on how well you can run a company long term. I think companies like coinbase can't afford to have non builders in leadership because they don't have a strong product market fit compared to Facebook, Tesla cars, AWS etc.
- ameister14 4y ago
  Almost every public company has a CFO and/or COO that has an MBA. It's not an 'in spite of;' financials get complicated as do business operations and those two things are what an MBA is for, other than networking. Also, I know a lot of entrepreneurial people that do not do very well when the company gets beyond a certain size. They can't operate within a system of greater restriction and don't want to follow best practices for employees. Managers are often not good builders and builders aren't always good managers.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  Addendums to fix the initial assessment? It's overrated that engineers and entrepreneurs can self manage. Look at any team of engineers without a good EM or PM
dogman144 4y ago
going to have to counter you on the Kirkhorn one, nary a line of code in sight unless you've got something else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Kirkhorn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zach_Kirkhorn