6 ms·

Why? The CEO of a company this big, no matter their background, has no business building an intimate understanding of the tech. They’re there to set up an incen

by lrem 3y ago

Why? The CEO of a company this big, no matter their background, has no business building an intimate understanding of the tech. They’re there to set up an incentive system to further the goals of their choosing. Neither seems to call for deep understanding of neither. And no background absolves a CEO from building a surface understanding of all aspects of running the business. TBF, from my experience with VPs, technical background might be a hindrance to executives. The guy who used to work on databases worries about persistence, even though nobody raised that issue. Networking background? Oh well, good that I know why we put this many bits into this field, despite it only needs a couple bytes and we can afford megabytes. Sure, they know their job enough to leave enough time for the actual question. I even understand why they first interrogate the room about some arbitrary cog in the machine. Still makes me wonder if there aren’t better ways to do this.

Syonyk 3y ago
> Why? The CEO of a company this big, no matter their background, has no business building an intimate understanding of the tech. This is certainly a point of contention in modern schools of business thought, but the concept of a CEO who doesn't understand what the company builds is bizarre to me. The CEO of Boeing, IMO, should probably have aircraft engineering experience, and, ideally, also be a pilot with the suitable type ratings to fly the stuff they build. And they should be open to "Hey, if you have engineering concerns about the airplanes we're building for the traveling public, you come to me!" style office visits. Someone with concerns about the "single sensor fault runaway trim" style system should have been able to bring it up, and have him understand it. I know this isn't what Boeing has. And they've lost a lot. This is now increasingly clear to people outside aviation circles.
- re5i5tor 3y ago
  Agree 100%
- sandworm101 3y ago
  >> also be a pilot with the suitable type ratings to fly the stuff they build. Why the pilot? When it comes to handling these machines, the pilots are one small corner. I would think that someone with experience keeping them safe and functional would be more on point these days. How about someone with the ratings for maintaining the machines? No pilot has ever inspected let alone installed a door plug.
  - bluejellybean 3y ago
    > No pilot has ever inspected let alone installed a door plug. Guess we run in different circles!
  - AdrianB1 3y ago
    It takes ~ 50 hours to get a pilot license and understand what is that. You don't need ATPL as a CEO, but flying regularly will keep you connected in a way that cannot be substituted, definitely not by the glasshouse that is a MBA. Can you be a successful CEO of a car manufacturer if you cannot drive a car?
    - sandworm101 3y ago
      50 hours? To fly an airliner you need way more than 50 hours. This isn't bouncing around the circuit in a Cessna. Boeing sells aircraft for use by airlines. Short of a handful people who own their own, to fly an airliner you need to be employed by an airline. You generally need something more like 1500 to 3000 hours before an airline is going to trust you with their equipment. https://atpflightschool.com/become-a-pilot/airline-career/how-long-to-become-a-pilot.html https://atpflightschool.com/become-a-pilot/airline-career/ho...
      - AdrianB1 3y ago
        Read again. I said you don't need ATPL to be the CEO of Boeing. If you don't agree, state that, don't pick on the 50 hours because you are wrong there. And don't be pedantic about ATPL requirements, I am a pilot and I know how this works. I do support my original comment.
        sandworm101 3y ago
        No, read the post to which I actually responded. It didn't say "pilot, any pilot, anyone with a ticket". >> also be a pilot with the suitable type ratings to fly the stuff they build. Boeing builds airliners. The "pilot" in the context of this threat a pilot rated to fly the "stuff they build".
- AaronM 3y ago
  Does the CEO need to know these things? I would argue no. What needs to happen is the CEO needs to listen and trust the technical people that report to him. There is a misalignment of priorities that will never be fixed as long as the primary incentive for the CEO is to maximize shareholder value. If you remove that, and force the primary incentiven to be safety over profits, the rest of the business will follow.
  - AdrianB1 3y ago
    A CEO of an aircraft manufacturer that does not know anything about flying and engineering is too disconnected from their core business (which is engineering planes, not managing techies), it does not trust and understand engineers and it is not trusted and followed by their technical reports. I saw that in technical fields, when you have a bozo as a manager (search for Steve Jobs interview on this matter) things go wrong, very wrong.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    > needs to listen and trust the technical people that report to him. If the CEO has no clue what the company does, those people could be blowing smoke up his/her ass There has to be assurance of technical competency somewhere, and someone that has ultimate authority to get rid of the incompetent. This doesn't disagree with your second sentence. The pursuit of profit seems to turn everything into a bank or gacha machine. Both safety and competency fall by the wayside.
    - AaronM 3y ago
      That goes back to the trust of his people. He has to trust his CTO (whatever that title is at boeing for their top engineer manager) to be the judge of that. The incentives have to align wrt quality engineering for there to be trust all the way down to the junior most engineer.
  - dv_dt 3y ago
    For products/services tied to real engineering, that idea that you can maximize profits without leadership that understands it at a deep level is wrong. If you want to maximize profits in that kind of company, you'd better be able to build and sustain a culture to systematically knock out catastrophic risks stemming from real world physical constraints. A management accounting guy is great at hedging financial risks, but that is what they'll always focus on, not the real world. What we are seeing with Boeing now is what happens if leadership is adrift without a good intuition about real world physical risks and what it takes to address them. You can't maximize profits while regularly causing catastrophic events.
_a_a_a_ 3y ago
Lack of understanding of X almost inevitably leads to a lack of valuing of X. Then the incentives will become perverse. The best bosses I've worked for are the minority who took the time to understand at least some of the technical side of things. I'm always struck by the fact that I, as a lowly dev, am expected to understand the business yet the suits floating far above me think they don't need to know what actually happens down below. Bad mistake. Lack of knowledge is never a good thing.
avalys 3y ago
There are plenty of engineers who are not suited for leadership positions, and inability to detach from the technical details and focus on the bigger picture is certainly something you'd want to watch out for. No one said these jobs are easy, or that the right people are easy to find. But it seems just as likely that an accountant as CEO would be unable to detach from irrelevant details about accounting systems, cost savings, tax classifications, or whatever it is that low-level accountants worry about.

by lrem 3y ago

Syonyk 3y ago

> Why? The CEO of a company this big, no matter their background, has no business building an intimate understanding of the tech. This is certainly a point of contention in modern schools of business thought, but the concept of a CEO who doesn't understand what the company builds is bizarre to me. The CEO of Boeing, IMO, should probably have aircraft engineering experience, and, ideally, also be a pilot with the suitable type ratings to fly the stuff they build. And they should be open to "Hey, if you have engineering concerns about the airplanes we're building for the traveling public, you come to me!" style office visits. Someone with concerns about the "single sensor fault runaway trim" style system should have been able to bring it up, and have him understand it. I know this isn't what Boeing has. And they've lost a lot. This is now increasingly clear to people outside aviation circles.

re5i5tor 3y ago
Agree 100%
sandworm101 3y ago
>> also be a pilot with the suitable type ratings to fly the stuff they build. Why the pilot? When it comes to handling these machines, the pilots are one small corner. I would think that someone with experience keeping them safe and functional would be more on point these days. How about someone with the ratings for maintaining the machines? No pilot has ever inspected let alone installed a door plug.
- bluejellybean 3y ago
  > No pilot has ever inspected let alone installed a door plug. Guess we run in different circles!
- AdrianB1 3y ago
  It takes ~ 50 hours to get a pilot license and understand what is that. You don't need ATPL as a CEO, but flying regularly will keep you connected in a way that cannot be substituted, definitely not by the glasshouse that is a MBA. Can you be a successful CEO of a car manufacturer if you cannot drive a car?
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    50 hours? To fly an airliner you need way more than 50 hours. This isn't bouncing around the circuit in a Cessna. Boeing sells aircraft for use by airlines. Short of a handful people who own their own, to fly an airliner you need to be employed by an airline. You generally need something more like 1500 to 3000 hours before an airline is going to trust you with their equipment. https://atpflightschool.com/become-a-pilot/airline-career/how-long-to-become-a-pilot.html https://atpflightschool.com/become-a-pilot/airline-career/ho...
    - AdrianB1 3y ago
      Read again. I said you don't need ATPL to be the CEO of Boeing. If you don't agree, state that, don't pick on the 50 hours because you are wrong there. And don't be pedantic about ATPL requirements, I am a pilot and I know how this works. I do support my original comment.
      - sandworm101 3y ago
        No, read the post to which I actually responded. It didn't say "pilot, any pilot, anyone with a ticket". >> also be a pilot with the suitable type ratings to fly the stuff they build. Boeing builds airliners. The "pilot" in the context of this threat a pilot rated to fly the "stuff they build".
AaronM 3y ago
Does the CEO need to know these things? I would argue no. What needs to happen is the CEO needs to listen and trust the technical people that report to him. There is a misalignment of priorities that will never be fixed as long as the primary incentive for the CEO is to maximize shareholder value. If you remove that, and force the primary incentiven to be safety over profits, the rest of the business will follow.
- AdrianB1 3y ago
  A CEO of an aircraft manufacturer that does not know anything about flying and engineering is too disconnected from their core business (which is engineering planes, not managing techies), it does not trust and understand engineers and it is not trusted and followed by their technical reports. I saw that in technical fields, when you have a bozo as a manager (search for Steve Jobs interview on this matter) things go wrong, very wrong.
- pixl97 3y ago
  > needs to listen and trust the technical people that report to him. If the CEO has no clue what the company does, those people could be blowing smoke up his/her ass There has to be assurance of technical competency somewhere, and someone that has ultimate authority to get rid of the incompetent. This doesn't disagree with your second sentence. The pursuit of profit seems to turn everything into a bank or gacha machine. Both safety and competency fall by the wayside.
  - AaronM 3y ago
    That goes back to the trust of his people. He has to trust his CTO (whatever that title is at boeing for their top engineer manager) to be the judge of that. The incentives have to align wrt quality engineering for there to be trust all the way down to the junior most engineer.
- dv_dt 3y ago
  For products/services tied to real engineering, that idea that you can maximize profits without leadership that understands it at a deep level is wrong. If you want to maximize profits in that kind of company, you'd better be able to build and sustain a culture to systematically knock out catastrophic risks stemming from real world physical constraints. A management accounting guy is great at hedging financial risks, but that is what they'll always focus on, not the real world. What we are seeing with Boeing now is what happens if leadership is adrift without a good intuition about real world physical risks and what it takes to address them. You can't maximize profits while regularly causing catastrophic events.

_a_a_a_ 3y ago

Lack of understanding of X almost inevitably leads to a lack of valuing of X. Then the incentives will become perverse. The best bosses I've worked for are the minority who took the time to understand at least some of the technical side of things. I'm always struck by the fact that I, as a lowly dev, am expected to understand the business yet the suits floating far above me think they don't need to know what actually happens down below. Bad mistake. Lack of knowledge is never a good thing.

avalys 3y ago

There are plenty of engineers who are not suited for leadership positions, and inability to detach from the technical details and focus on the bigger picture is certainly something you'd want to watch out for. No one said these jobs are easy, or that the right people are easy to find. But it seems just as likely that an accountant as CEO would be unable to detach from irrelevant details about accounting systems, cost savings, tax classifications, or whatever it is that low-level accountants worry about.