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Early in my career I was greatly surprised to realise it’s often not technical people at the top.

by andrewstuart 2y ago

dexwiz 2y ago
Money is a technology.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  ...which would benefit from more frequent updates.
joshdavham 2y ago
It's also pretty disheartening that certain famous 'tech' podcasts are hosted by people who've never written a line of code in their lives. Like who are you to comment on where AI will be in 10 years? You don't even know what back propagation is.
cortesoft 2y ago
If you only had technical people in every position, software would be designed only for technical people.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  There’s a difference between technical at the leadership positions vs every position. Nvidia’s CEO is technical. Google’s was technical for a very long time. AMD’s is technical. Amazon’s was for a very long time. Microsoft’s was for a very long time and is again. I think it’s a bold claim to make that technical people are only capable of designing for technical people. There’s plenty of people who understand how to build products that connect to the consumer and non-technical people don’t have a unique ability to do so.
- robocat 2y ago
  You imply you believe that technical people are one-dimensional and lack some fundamental skill. You imply that some other people have this empathetic skill that technical people lack...
  - cortesoft 2y ago
    The fundamental skill I think technical people lack is understanding how non-technical people use software and technology. We just can’t imagine how non-tech people see things, and since most users of most products are non-tech users, many decisions should be made by those types of people.
    - robocat 2y ago
      You are just using a poor stereotype. I agree that many technical people don't give a shit about users or usability. However it is also true that non-technical people often don't give a shit. Making sweeping assumptions about a group will only harm yourself. Good techos must also be good at talking with users and understanding user needs: it is a critical skill for designing user interfaces (software or hardware). Anyone lacking user facing skills severely limits their salary and career choices. There's a reason so many development methods and startup advice focuses on the user.
bruce511 2y ago
I see this as a good thing (hear me out.) Building a product or business is a multi-skilled task. Broadly speaking you need to cover product development, marketing, finance. Good leadership covers all 3 bases, but leadership in the latter 2 is more important than leadership in product. Which sounds backwards, but you're the tech guy providing the tech. Leadership is figuring out what / how / to who of marketing coupled with the balancing of finances to make the business work. VC funding of course up-ends this model. It removes financing and marketing (and even product fit) from the equation. Here's a pile of money, "go build something and we'll figure out the rest later..." Sure 90% fail to figure it out, and the business part fails, but that's OK because the VC (although not always the techie) comes out a winner. It's a great model to handle the edge-case of good ideas that are hard to pull off. If you end up in a non-vc business though, don't be surprised if most of the layers above you don't care about the tech.

Early in my career I was greatly surprised to realise it’s often not technical people at the top.

dexwiz 2y ago

Money is a technology.

__MatrixMan__ 2y ago
...which would benefit from more frequent updates.

joshdavham 2y ago

It's also pretty disheartening that certain famous 'tech' podcasts are hosted by people who've never written a line of code in their lives. Like who are you to comment on where AI will be in 10 years? You don't even know what back propagation is.

cortesoft 2y ago

If you only had technical people in every position, software would be designed only for technical people.

vlovich123 2y ago
There’s a difference between technical at the leadership positions vs every position. Nvidia’s CEO is technical. Google’s was technical for a very long time. AMD’s is technical. Amazon’s was for a very long time. Microsoft’s was for a very long time and is again. I think it’s a bold claim to make that technical people are only capable of designing for technical people. There’s plenty of people who understand how to build products that connect to the consumer and non-technical people don’t have a unique ability to do so.
robocat 2y ago
You imply you believe that technical people are one-dimensional and lack some fundamental skill. You imply that some other people have this empathetic skill that technical people lack...
- cortesoft 2y ago
  The fundamental skill I think technical people lack is understanding how non-technical people use software and technology. We just can’t imagine how non-tech people see things, and since most users of most products are non-tech users, many decisions should be made by those types of people.
  - robocat 2y ago
    You are just using a poor stereotype. I agree that many technical people don't give a shit about users or usability. However it is also true that non-technical people often don't give a shit. Making sweeping assumptions about a group will only harm yourself. Good techos must also be good at talking with users and understanding user needs: it is a critical skill for designing user interfaces (software or hardware). Anyone lacking user facing skills severely limits their salary and career choices. There's a reason so many development methods and startup advice focuses on the user.

bruce511 2y ago

I see this as a good thing (hear me out.) Building a product or business is a multi-skilled task. Broadly speaking you need to cover product development, marketing, finance. Good leadership covers all 3 bases, but leadership in the latter 2 is more important than leadership in product. Which sounds backwards, but you're the tech guy providing the tech. Leadership is figuring out what / how / to who of marketing coupled with the balancing of finances to make the business work. VC funding of course up-ends this model. It removes financing and marketing (and even product fit) from the equation. Here's a pile of money, "go build something and we'll figure out the rest later..." Sure 90% fail to figure it out, and the business part fails, but that's OK because the VC (although not always the techie) comes out a winner. It's a great model to handle the edge-case of good ideas that are hard to pull off. If you end up in a non-vc business though, don't be surprised if most of the layers above you don't care about the tech.