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I believe that if I tried playing the game, I'd make a pretty good CTO. But as PG is aluding to, there are a lot of really talented people out there (including

I believe that if I tried playing the game, I'd make a pretty good CTO. But as PG is aluding to, there are a lot of really talented people out there (including myself) who hate playing the politic/self-promotion game. For small startups, you can be an effective C level player while avoiding these "soft skills" but the bigger the org the more important these skills get. Avoiding the game, or worse: playing it badly, can kill a startup. I think this is why a lot of founders struggle as their org grows.

mathattack 4y ago
It’s a different skill set. When companies are small, advancing the agenda is the most important thing. As companies get bigger “advancing the agenda without pushing anyone off” is what’s important. When companies get huge, the balance gets lopsided. So many people have explicit or implicit veto power that the “don’t piss anyone off” becomes more important than getting things done. And that’s why you see execs failing forward with content-free messages of glorious buzzwords. It’s also why it’s very dangerous to hire Big Company execs into a startup where it’s still important to advance the agenda.
dagw 4y ago
A good CTO lives and dies on "soft skills". At two places I've been I've seen competent engineers with solid technical pedigree brought in as CTO and completely flounder since, for whatever reason, they could not get the managers below them to execute his (in my opinion very sensible) plans.
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