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This is a popular idea among many people with domain expertise (in this case, developers), but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. By this standard, a CEO would ne

This is a popular idea among many people with domain expertise (in this case, developers), but it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. By this standard, a CEO would need decent expertise in every aspect of running their business, which as a business scales becomes impossible. Businesses are collections of people and need to succeed as such. The whole point of hiring people is to grow the skills available to the business. If you know enough to micro-manage all your staff, you’re either not very senior or you hired poorly (or both). Management is more complicated than just fact-checking and BS-detection. In fact if you’re significantly worried about detecting BS by your staff, you already have a management problem.

lazide 4y ago
It is a requirement for every CEO that I’ve seen that they understand all core business functions, to the degree I’m stating. A CEO that can’t understand how the companies finances are structured and how it makes it’s money is going to be blind to the core machinery of the business. A CEO that doesn’t understand how the companies operations work is going to make bad optimizations that will hurt it’s ability to serve customers with it’s core products. A CEO that doesn’t understand how the companies customer support and public facing relations work is likely to tank the companies public image. A CEO that doesn’t understand how the companies Sales work is going to be scammed by them or destroy the companies revenue producing channels accidentally. I can point you to dozens of high profile examples of this. None of this is micro management level. It’s ‘are the books making sense and congruent with the actual day to day operating status of the business’. It’s ‘are we competent and effective at producing our core products’. It’s ‘when someone needs help, they get it effectively and at a cost to us that makes sense’. To judge those requires knowledge and understanding of those areas. The reality is that no one individual knows all these things well enough to run a large corporation well, which is why the board of directors in a properly managed company will be performing oversight on many of these functions. Especially financial, as that’s the most tempting target if someone gets desperate. And you’re right - a good manager or leader isn’t worried about BS (for long), but I never said they would be - I said they could tell the difference. Good fences make good neighbors, after all, and if folks know you can tell, there is no point trying. None of that is micromanaging. If you get a reputation as someone who can’t tell the difference and/or doesn’t care, a lot of people you wouldn’t expect will try. That’s what causes problems.
phkahler 4y ago
>> By this standard, a CEO would need decent expertise in every aspect of running their business, which as a business scales becomes impossible. The solution is to have people under them to oversee the other areas that are not the CEO's expertise. Now how do you achieve that? I don't know. When one of those people moves on how do you replace them? I don't know, but promote from within would seem to be wise, since this hypothetical organization has a low tolerance for BS.
drc500free 4y ago
My personal experience (as assistant to a CEO) was that between him and the CFO they could have run every aspect of the business competently. He had very consciously found another executive who complemented his talents so that there was full coverage. The breadth and depth of knowledge was intimidating and very impressive, and they could drill down to the necessary level to uncover bullshit anywhere. They rarely did, but knowing that they could prevented a lot of nonsense.
spoonjim 4y ago
In many family-owned businesses the heir apparent (normally the eldest son of the owner) is prepared for the job by working as many of the low-level jobs as possible when a teenager. They clean the trash, lubricate the machines, etc. Two benefits: they know about how the business works so they can't be BSed later on, and they have the credibility with the line-level employees.
pnutjam 4y ago
CEO is not a standard manager. They are running a company, which can do many things. The managers should have an expertise in what the company is doing. Too many places just assume the company is doing "marketing" or "sales" and the people running it need to be experts in that.
mgkimsal 4y ago
> By this standard, a CEO would need decent expertise in every aspect of running their business, which as a business scales becomes impossible. I didn't read that at all.. "A VP/Executive is a level above managing it, as they need to be managing managers..." The 'higher ups' don't need to know how to do development, but they do need to know how to manager development managers - set priorities, provide assistance/blocking, etc. And the CEO would need to be someone who can manage those executives. The 'domain expertise' is (mostly) expertise/experience in managing people managing other people/processes. At least, that's what I got from the GP comment.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
  The GP edited their comment after I posted my reply.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    AHA... That helps clarify a bit. Thanks.
charles_f 4y ago
The CEO is a bit of an exception in that they're where ends meet, through an organization it's the one place where radically different functions report to the same person. And those functions are not that different in that they're usually CxO, whom job is running the function under them. With that said, I would persist that a CEO should be a SME in the value creation function of their company. > Management is more complicated than just fact-checking and BS-detection. In fact if you’re significantly worried about detecting BS by your staff, you already have a management problem. It is, but similarly it's also hard to figure a strategy that works if you can't empathize with your customers, and as CEO that's your job. I've been working on a "platform" that was led by a VP who didn't have dev experience. The only priority was increasing the feature set, with only consideration given to the "end user". Developer experience left as an afterthought and never raised to the level of a goal, resulting in cumbersome programming paradygms, and low adoption. > if you’re significantly worried about detecting BS by your staff, you already have a management problem. Couldn't agree more

lazide 4y ago

It is a requirement for every CEO that I’ve seen that they understand all core business functions, to the degree I’m stating. A CEO that can’t understand how the companies finances are structured and how it makes it’s money is going to be blind to the core machinery of the business. A CEO that doesn’t understand how the companies operations work is going to make bad optimizations that will hurt it’s ability to serve customers with it’s core products. A CEO that doesn’t understand how the companies customer support and public facing relations work is likely to tank the companies public image. A CEO that doesn’t understand how the companies Sales work is going to be scammed by them or destroy the companies revenue producing channels accidentally. I can point you to dozens of high profile examples of this. None of this is micro management level. It’s ‘are the books making sense and congruent with the actual day to day operating status of the business’. It’s ‘are we competent and effective at producing our core products’. It’s ‘when someone needs help, they get it effectively and at a cost to us that makes sense’. To judge those requires knowledge and understanding of those areas. The reality is that no one individual knows all these things well enough to run a large corporation well, which is why the board of directors in a properly managed company will be performing oversight on many of these functions. Especially financial, as that’s the most tempting target if someone gets desperate. And you’re right - a good manager or leader isn’t worried about BS (for long), but I never said they would be - I said they could tell the difference. Good fences make good neighbors, after all, and if folks know you can tell, there is no point trying. None of that is micromanaging. If you get a reputation as someone who can’t tell the difference and/or doesn’t care, a lot of people you wouldn’t expect will try. That’s what causes problems.

phkahler 4y ago

>> By this standard, a CEO would need decent expertise in every aspect of running their business, which as a business scales becomes impossible. The solution is to have people under them to oversee the other areas that are not the CEO's expertise. Now how do you achieve that? I don't know. When one of those people moves on how do you replace them? I don't know, but promote from within would seem to be wise, since this hypothetical organization has a low tolerance for BS.

drc500free 4y ago

My personal experience (as assistant to a CEO) was that between him and the CFO they could have run every aspect of the business competently. He had very consciously found another executive who complemented his talents so that there was full coverage. The breadth and depth of knowledge was intimidating and very impressive, and they could drill down to the necessary level to uncover bullshit anywhere. They rarely did, but knowing that they could prevented a lot of nonsense.

spoonjim 4y ago

In many family-owned businesses the heir apparent (normally the eldest son of the owner) is prepared for the job by working as many of the low-level jobs as possible when a teenager. They clean the trash, lubricate the machines, etc. Two benefits: they know about how the business works so they can't be BSed later on, and they have the credibility with the line-level employees.

pnutjam 4y ago

CEO is not a standard manager. They are running a company, which can do many things. The managers should have an expertise in what the company is doing. Too many places just assume the company is doing "marketing" or "sales" and the people running it need to be experts in that.

mgkimsal 4y ago

> By this standard, a CEO would need decent expertise in every aspect of running their business, which as a business scales becomes impossible. I didn't read that at all.. "A VP/Executive is a level above managing it, as they need to be managing managers..." The 'higher ups' don't need to know how to do development, but they do need to know how to manager development managers - set priorities, provide assistance/blocking, etc. And the CEO would need to be someone who can manage those executives. The 'domain expertise' is (mostly) expertise/experience in managing people managing other people/processes. At least, that's what I got from the GP comment.

snowwrestler 4y ago
The GP edited their comment after I posted my reply.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  AHA... That helps clarify a bit. Thanks.

charles_f 4y ago

The CEO is a bit of an exception in that they're where ends meet, through an organization it's the one place where radically different functions report to the same person. And those functions are not that different in that they're usually CxO, whom job is running the function under them. With that said, I would persist that a CEO should be a SME in the value creation function of their company. > Management is more complicated than just fact-checking and BS-detection. In fact if you’re significantly worried about detecting BS by your staff, you already have a management problem. It is, but similarly it's also hard to figure a strategy that works if you can't empathize with your customers, and as CEO that's your job. I've been working on a "platform" that was led by a VP who didn't have dev experience. The only priority was increasing the feature set, with only consideration given to the "end user". Developer experience left as an afterthought and never raised to the level of a goal, resulting in cumbersome programming paradygms, and low adoption. > if you’re significantly worried about detecting BS by your staff, you already have a management problem. Couldn't agree more