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Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

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Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#171

Post by bunnymancer »

tim333 wrote: post #162
DelaneyM wrote: post #38

tl;dr: in your situation many people go off and get an MBA. Don't do that. There's a reason there's only one CTO in HBS' 60,000 person alumni database (I am she.) I was a very hands-on CTO for years after a decade of coding, and broadly enjoyed it. But as the teams I managed grew it became increasingly unfulfilling. When you're CTO, you're often excluded from business decisions which have a bigger impact on your team…

>there's no real place in the world for a highly technical business leader. Bill, Larry and Sergei, Musk and Bezos did ok

4 exceptional cases aren't much of proof of anything..

It's like saying racism and equality is resolved because Obama is president.

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#172

Post by tixocloud »

DelaneyM wrote: post #38

tl;dr: in your situation many people go off and get an MBA. Don't do that. There's a reason there's only one CTO in HBS' 60,000 person alumni database (I am she.) I was a very hands-on CTO for years after a decade of coding, and broadly enjoyed it. But as the teams I managed grew it became increasingly unfulfilling. When you're CTO, you're often excluded from business decisions which have a bigger impact on your team…

Congrats on taking that leap of faith.

Essentially in the same boat as you and agree on the value of the MBA is in communications.

While arguably technical business leaders can significantly help organizations, businesses just don't see that way.

I've made the shift to the business side and don't do any coding at all. More time is being spent planning, analysis, presentations and building relationships.

I'm also set to start a new venture on my own as solo founder. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#173

Post by paulsutter »

tracker1 wrote: post #166
paulsutter wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately, there's no real place in the world for a highly technical business leader. So how do you account for Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Larry Page, and so on? I think you meant to say "there's no place at Dronecorp for a highly technical business leader". It's logical that Dronecorp should hire Harvard MBAs who score high on agreeableness and are skilled at showing each other powerpoints.

See the last statement in the comment, "The only truly successful technical leader is the founder..."

Google and other well run companies have skilled technical people at all management levels.

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#174

Post by __derek__ »

nekopa wrote: post #118
DelaneyM wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tl;dr: If there's no reason to get an MBA as a promotion-track engineer, then not only will none of your promoted engineers will have MBAs, none of your promoted MBAs will have practical experience being a great engineer. They wouldn't, of course. And that's really the problem. If you don't have mid-level technical managers with MBAs, you don't get to promote/hire VP-level technical MBAs. An MBA does teach a lot of v…

So why don't we, as an industry, talk to the Universities, and say that we really need a new program, let's say a TechMBA? (Or for marketing purposes, call it a TeMBA - that really rolls off the tongue :) I'd think that there would be some interest around this from the universities, and business is really crying out for this too. From the Uni viewpoint, it is another product they can leverage, whilst still using ther…

Cornell has launched a program[1] that aims to be what you're describing here. There's also a Technology Management MBA from the University of Washington's Foster School[2], although it's more of a technology-oriented part-time MBA than a traditional MBA targeted at engineers.

[1] Cornell Tech MBA: http://tech.cornell.edu/programs/masters-programs/johnson-co...

[2] UW Foster Technology Management MBA: http://foster.uw.edu/academics/degree-programs/technology-ma...

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#175

Post by vasilipupkin »

DelaneyM wrote: post #123
vasilipupkin wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strongly doubting the assertion that it is easier to become a Google VP as a coder than a product manager. Product managers are responsible for the product and its P&L which is much more suited as training ground for VP than being a coder, in my opinion

A better 1:1 comparison is PM vs lead Engineer. They're at similar levels in the hierarchy. There are idiosyncratic and systematic ways to consider this statement. My personal belief is that it would be an easier path because I know myself to be very good at building products and supporting engineers, and relatively less interested in market research & networking. In a more general sense, it's pretty easy to get a ro…

You are saying Google has a lot of VPs without MBA and no product leadership experience, without any prior experience of having P&L responsibility, strictly engineering experience? Perhaps, but I am skeptical. I'd like to see the data on that.

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#176

Post by dragonwriter »

nekopa wrote: post #118
DelaneyM wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tl;dr: If there's no reason to get an MBA as a promotion-track engineer, then not only will none of your promoted engineers will have MBAs, none of your promoted MBAs will have practical experience being a great engineer. They wouldn't, of course. And that's really the problem. If you don't have mid-level technical managers with MBAs, you don't get to promote/hire VP-level technical MBAs. An MBA does teach a lot of v…

So why don't we, as an industry, talk to the Universities, and say that we really need a new program, let's say a TechMBA? (Or for marketing purposes, call it a TeMBA - that really rolls off the tongue :) I'd think that there would be some interest around this from the universities, and business is really crying out for this too. From the Uni viewpoint, it is another product they can leverage, whilst still using ther…

> So why don't we, as an industry, talk to the Universities, and say that we really need a new program, let's say a TechMBA?

Its already been done, and there are a wide-number of tech-specialized MBA programs.

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#177

Post by tormeh »

nekopa wrote: post #118
DelaneyM wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

tl;dr: If there's no reason to get an MBA as a promotion-track engineer, then not only will none of your promoted engineers will have MBAs, none of your promoted MBAs will have practical experience being a great engineer. They wouldn't, of course. And that's really the problem. If you don't have mid-level technical managers with MBAs, you don't get to promote/hire VP-level technical MBAs. An MBA does teach a lot of v…

So why don't we, as an industry, talk to the Universities, and say that we really need a new program, let's say a TechMBA? (Or for marketing purposes, call it a TeMBA - that really rolls off the tongue :) I'd think that there would be some interest around this from the universities, and business is really crying out for this too. From the Uni viewpoint, it is another product they can leverage, whilst still using ther…

This already exists: http://www.ntnu.edu/studies/mtiot . It probably exists in the US too.

The demand for them is crazy-high. Leadership roles in Norway are very rarely filled by hiring fresh graduates, but the consultancies lap them up.

It's an integrated 5-year master. They do engineering stuff the first three years, specializing in the third, and then they do two years of economics/business/leadership. It's very specialized, and to me it looks like they are OK at their chosen engineering discipline and OK at their chosen business discipline but not very well rounded. That's the sacrifices you have to make when you make a business/engineering combination but try to avoid making master-of-nones, I guess.

Their choices are (in each stage they can only chose one. 3. year available choices depends on 1/2. year choices):

1/2. year: CompSci/high-voltage/machine/marine

3. year: AI/digital economics/software/el. energy/heat & energy processes/production/marine projects and logistics/marine technical operations

4/5. year: economic optimization/project leadership/purchasing and supply/reorganization/investment and finance/innovation and entrepreneurship/HSE/strategy and business development

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#178

Post by tim333 »

DelaneyM wrote: post #167
tim333 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there's no real place in the world for a highly technical business leader. Bill, Larry and Sergei, Musk and Bezos did ok

All of those people are founders. My thesis is that there's no place in the world to be hired as an engineer w/ an MBA (which is comparably compensated to and inaccessible to "just" engineers or "just" MBAs), and no place within traditional hierarchies.

Ah - got you. Though I could counter with Satya Nadella who had a degree in Comp Sci and an MBA before joining Microsoft.

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#179

Post by throwawaycto »

As a CTO myself, i see there is a lot of vagueness in the whole role of CTO. Almost all other roles in an organization are well-defined and have clear goals and responsibilities. The role of the CTO varies so widely between each organization, it is something that has to be specified clearly when going through the hiring process or even when starting a startup.

Why does this happen? I have found it has a lot to do with the investors and management team. I've seen the definition of the CTO varies as far as "The CTO should be the technical evangelist, super SEO." all the way to, "The CTO is in charge of Product and delivery."

IMHO giving CTO titles to the "evangelist, super SEO" undermines the role, because that role does not warrant either "Chief" or "Officer" in their title.

----

As far as myself, i retain the CTO title because am the owner of the technology; in that i make sure that technology is all the things we are trying to achieve as a business; looking beyond the current implementation and plan out how we need to build the product over the coming years. This goes alway down to components required, system architecture, external interfaces and how we can do things better, faster, cheaper. I also write pieces of the code and help out in engineering task as needed. This keeps my competency in day to day ENG high. Involvement with ENG tasks and coding is what keeps my sanity.

If someone asked me if i liked my role as CTO i would say yes but there is all the things you listed (fight fires and battling with managers and tech team).

Re: Ask HN: I don't enjoy being a CTO. Now what?

#180

Post by atmosx »

DelaneyM wrote: post #38

tl;dr: in your situation many people go off and get an MBA. Don't do that. There's a reason there's only one CTO in HBS' 60,000 person alumni database (I am she.) I was a very hands-on CTO for years after a decade of coding, and broadly enjoyed it. But as the teams I managed grew it became increasingly unfulfilling. When you're CTO, you're often excluded from business decisions which have a bigger impact on your team…

> Unfortunately, there's no real place in the world for a highly technical business leader.

You were at MS. How do you call Bill Gates if not highly technical ? :-)

That said, I understand what you mean.

> Also, I'd really misdiagnosed my malaise. What I'd been missing was not strategic input, but the opportunity to build things.

Isn't that exactly what Steve Jobs was doing for a living at Apple (or Pixar)?

Again I understand what you're saying, but maybe not all companies/positions are so well defined as you make it sound.

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