No it's not. A typical engineer is not a good CEO. Like Knuth said, "a good scientist/engineer is one who get to the bottom of things". A CEO is someone who get

No it's not. A typical engineer is not a good CEO. Like Knuth said, "a good scientist/engineer is one who get to the bottom of things". A CEO is someone who gets on top of things. That is not to say there doesn't exist someone who can do both, probably better in one than the other. Bill Gates / Larry Page / Larry Ellison, etc. are (or used to be) good engineers, but they are also good businessmen and able to to communicate the language of business. A CEO not only communicates with his engineers / manager / executive team, but also with external customers. There are also different classes of customers: enterprise, consumers; each would need a different sales pitch. A CEO who is not able to connect with people is not going to be a good CEO. And by connecting, you probably need to make references to sports, music, fashion trends or whatever that is the demographics you are selling to are interested in. A CEO who is "foreign" to US culture / language will have a hard time running a company in US. Now if you are as charismatic/iconic as Arnold Schawazenegger then you might get by. But even Arnold worked hard on his English and he is clearly picking up some American accent :) Disclaimer: I am a recent immigrant and have a strong accent.