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This is why management needs to be competent. Average CEO is 58 years old. Their first jobs were in the late 1980s. The economics and tactics around technology

This is why management needs to be competent. Average CEO is 58 years old. Their first jobs were in the late 1980s. The economics and tactics around technology has been revolutionized a dozen times over in the last 4 decades. Now, maybe a few rare individuals have kept up, but most likely, they all rely on outdated strategies from out of touch MBA programs & buzz words. Its the same reason the market kills public technology companies' innovation and they rely on acquisition. Its like gunpowder has just been invented and leadership still wants large formations marching against each other. "what if we invested in medical training and add washing our hands so we can keep more people alive?" "nah, more guns and marching"

no_wizard 3y ago
Funnily enough, the best managers I've had are all in the late 40s - mid 50s that all did 20 years in the "trenches" and decided that management was the new path forward for them as they started to prefer people work to technical work. I think its work experience that matters most with management. You need folks who are people oriented but understand the job that the folks they manage are doing, and the challenges that come with it, both obvious and non obvious, and can communicate the importance of such work to the broader organization
- gopher_space 3y ago
  There was an article posted here a month or so ago about how this guy was seeing a new class of worker emerge who both understood the necessity of absorbing knowledge from other domains and enjoyed the process. It reminded me of a dev I worked with who'd go on smoke breaks with the art department and then change data structures we'd been using forever.
  - bumby 3y ago
    I was under the assumption this type of worker is what dominated before the industrial revolution constrained people to a small domain in a process. Some may call it artisan, dilettante, etc. Maybe the narrow-domain specialist was the anomaly and not the rule when we expand our lens across history.
  - QuercusMax 3y ago
    I assume these "smoke breaks with the art department" involved more than just tobacco.... :D
_jal 3y ago
> The economics and tactics around technology has been revolutionized a dozen times over in the last 4 decades. Now, maybe a few rare individuals have kept up, but most likely, they all rely on outdated strategies from out of touch MBA programs & buzz words. Ah, the cult of youth. It is cute, when it isn't killing startups with rookie moves. It almost sounds like you think management is something like practicing law - like there's a set of rules that are revised on a schedule and they need CLE credits to keep them current.
unoti 3y ago
You had me with competence, but you lost me with blatant ageism
xapata 3y ago
Your gunpowder and large formations metaphor doesn't hold. People aren't idiots, on the whole. Do a little more military history research.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  Particular people can be utter cretins, they've crashed the world economy in 2008 and nearly caused global nicl3ar war by sheer stupidity: > the Russian nuclear sub B-59, which had been running submerged for days, was cornered by 11 US destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph. The US ships began dropping depth charges around the sub. Officers aboard had every reason to believe that their American counterparts were trying to sink them. Cut off from outside contact, buffeted by depth charges, the most obvious conclusion for the officers of B-59 was that global war had already begun. The submarine was armed with 10-kiloton nuclear torpedos and its officers had permission from their superiors to launch it without confirmation from Moscow. Two out of three serior officers onboard agreed to launch, but unanimous vote was required.
  - xapata 3y ago
    I did say, "on the whole." I was specifically thinking of the idea that large formations being idiocy after the invention of gunpowder. Brett Devereaux's 4-part series "The Universal Warrior" had an excellent discussion of why a unit of soldiers might fight in large formation. https://acoup.blog/2021/02/12/collections-the-universal-warrior-part-iib-a-soldiers-lot/ https://acoup.blog/2021/02/12/collections-the-universal-warr... He's verbose, but thoroughly enjoyable.
askafriend 3y ago
This says more about the kind of places you've worked than anything else.
bumby 3y ago
>Its the same reason the market kills public technology companies' innovation and they rely on acquisition. The counter-theory is that as companies mature, they have to devote a disproportionate amount of time to maintenance. From that perspective, it's a risk-based approach to maintain the products and services that already have a market and instead effectively out-source the high risk operations of innovation. New companies don't have comparatively much to maintain, so they can focus on innovation. It's not quite such an either-or, but a balancing act. It's just easier to balance when you can outsource risk. >Average CEO is 58 years old. Their first jobs were in the late 1980s. I believe there's some neuroscience theory that may illuminate this. When we're young, our intelligence is more plastic and can more readily innovate. But as we get older it becomes more crystalline. What we may lose some of that novelty generation, we can gain in understanding the greater levels of experience. Experience is necessary for putting ideas in their appropriate context. I would argue that understanding context is more important at high, strategic-level positions.
dagw 3y ago
Maybe it's just me, but basically all the best senior managers I've had have been in their 50s and with plenty of experience under their belt. I've had one or two in their late 60s who where starting to lose touch with the field, but most managers in their 50s I've found have kept up pretty well.
pyrale 3y ago
> Its like gunpowder has just been invented and leadership still wants large formations marching against each other. Incidentally, marching large formations against each other has been the dominant strategy for most of Gunpowder's history. Only in the last 150 years did guns become lethal enough to make this a bad idea.
chinchilla2020 3y ago
Reminds me of the ill-fated cavalry charges in WW2. Many older officers insisted that "the fundamentals of war are the same" despite new technology. I can imagine a modern tech leader living in those times and giving the orders to charge the German panzer formation, sabers overhead.

no_wizard 3y ago

Funnily enough, the best managers I've had are all in the late 40s - mid 50s that all did 20 years in the "trenches" and decided that management was the new path forward for them as they started to prefer people work to technical work. I think its work experience that matters most with management. You need folks who are people oriented but understand the job that the folks they manage are doing, and the challenges that come with it, both obvious and non obvious, and can communicate the importance of such work to the broader organization

gopher_space 3y ago
There was an article posted here a month or so ago about how this guy was seeing a new class of worker emerge who both understood the necessity of absorbing knowledge from other domains and enjoyed the process. It reminded me of a dev I worked with who'd go on smoke breaks with the art department and then change data structures we'd been using forever.
- bumby 3y ago
  I was under the assumption this type of worker is what dominated before the industrial revolution constrained people to a small domain in a process. Some may call it artisan, dilettante, etc. Maybe the narrow-domain specialist was the anomaly and not the rule when we expand our lens across history.
- QuercusMax 3y ago
  I assume these "smoke breaks with the art department" involved more than just tobacco.... :D

_jal 3y ago

> The economics and tactics around technology has been revolutionized a dozen times over in the last 4 decades. Now, maybe a few rare individuals have kept up, but most likely, they all rely on outdated strategies from out of touch MBA programs & buzz words. Ah, the cult of youth. It is cute, when it isn't killing startups with rookie moves. It almost sounds like you think management is something like practicing law - like there's a set of rules that are revised on a schedule and they need CLE credits to keep them current.

unoti 3y ago

You had me with competence, but you lost me with blatant ageism

xapata 3y ago

Your gunpowder and large formations metaphor doesn't hold. People aren't idiots, on the whole. Do a little more military history research.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago
Particular people can be utter cretins, they've crashed the world economy in 2008 and nearly caused global nicl3ar war by sheer stupidity: > the Russian nuclear sub B-59, which had been running submerged for days, was cornered by 11 US destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph. The US ships began dropping depth charges around the sub. Officers aboard had every reason to believe that their American counterparts were trying to sink them. Cut off from outside contact, buffeted by depth charges, the most obvious conclusion for the officers of B-59 was that global war had already begun. The submarine was armed with 10-kiloton nuclear torpedos and its officers had permission from their superiors to launch it without confirmation from Moscow. Two out of three serior officers onboard agreed to launch, but unanimous vote was required.
- xapata 3y ago
  I did say, "on the whole." I was specifically thinking of the idea that large formations being idiocy after the invention of gunpowder. Brett Devereaux's 4-part series "The Universal Warrior" had an excellent discussion of why a unit of soldiers might fight in large formation. https://acoup.blog/2021/02/12/collections-the-universal-warrior-part-iib-a-soldiers-lot/ https://acoup.blog/2021/02/12/collections-the-universal-warr... He's verbose, but thoroughly enjoyable.

askafriend 3y ago

This says more about the kind of places you've worked than anything else.

bumby 3y ago

>Its the same reason the market kills public technology companies' innovation and they rely on acquisition. The counter-theory is that as companies mature, they have to devote a disproportionate amount of time to maintenance. From that perspective, it's a risk-based approach to maintain the products and services that already have a market and instead effectively out-source the high risk operations of innovation. New companies don't have comparatively much to maintain, so they can focus on innovation. It's not quite such an either-or, but a balancing act. It's just easier to balance when you can outsource risk. >Average CEO is 58 years old. Their first jobs were in the late 1980s. I believe there's some neuroscience theory that may illuminate this. When we're young, our intelligence is more plastic and can more readily innovate. But as we get older it becomes more crystalline. What we may lose some of that novelty generation, we can gain in understanding the greater levels of experience. Experience is necessary for putting ideas in their appropriate context. I would argue that understanding context is more important at high, strategic-level positions.

dagw 3y ago

Maybe it's just me, but basically all the best senior managers I've had have been in their 50s and with plenty of experience under their belt. I've had one or two in their late 60s who where starting to lose touch with the field, but most managers in their 50s I've found have kept up pretty well.

pyrale 3y ago

> Its like gunpowder has just been invented and leadership still wants large formations marching against each other. Incidentally, marching large formations against each other has been the dominant strategy for most of Gunpowder's history. Only in the last 150 years did guns become lethal enough to make this a bad idea.

chinchilla2020 3y ago

Reminds me of the ill-fated cavalry charges in WW2. Many older officers insisted that "the fundamentals of war are the same" despite new technology. I can imagine a modern tech leader living in those times and giving the orders to charge the German panzer formation, sabers overhead.