How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers • Hacker News Board

Re: How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers

#21

Post by edawerd » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 7:56 PM UTC

iamwil wrote: post #19

Sup Eddie. Besides books, did you go and ask people about how to be a great CTO? Who did you pick to ask, and how did you find those people?

Hey Wil!

Yeah, I found a few mentors who I would feel comfortable asking questions and getting advice. I met some though investor introductions, and others through friends of friends.

Re: How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers

#22

Post by saketj » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 8:00 PM UTC

Great post! What were some of the toughest decisions that you had to make in your capacity as CTO, as the company became larger?

Re: How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers

#23

Post by sli » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 8:01 PM UTC

asdsa5325 wrote: post #18

Yikes, that open office picture looks like my nightmares.

Took me a second to realize you didn't mean, well, OpenOffice.

I'll have to second your "yikes," that looks like a really distracting and very echoy place to work. I'd never get anything substantial done with any reasonable speed.

Re: How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers

#24

Post by walshemj » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

asdsa5325 wrote: post #18

Yikes, that open office picture looks like my nightmares.

All those hard surfaces looks like it would be a noisy environment.

Re: How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers

#25

Post by easymovet » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

asdsa5325 wrote: post #18

Yikes, that open office picture looks like my nightmares.

The justification I hear for ignoring the data against open offices is: "Every other unicorn has an office like this and they get work done so why can't we"?

Re: How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers

#26

Post by jackconnor » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 8:08 PM UTC

great article, loved it

Re: How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers

#27

Post by mandelbrotwurst » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 8:09 PM UTC

easymovet wrote: post #25

asdsa5325 wrote: post #18

Yikes, that open office picture looks like my nightmares.

The justification I hear for ignoring the data against open offices is: "Every other unicorn has an office like this and they get work done so why can't we"?

In a place like SF where office space is as expensive as it is, I wouldn't be shocked if the savings in rent from this kind of floor plan outweigh any productivity losses and I'd bet that is a primary reason why there are so many open offices.

Edit: That said, that one definitely doesn't look like the most efficient use of space.

Re: How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers

#28

Post by volaski » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 8:14 PM UTC

it's refreshing to see someone who actually successfully scaled a company write an article about "here's how we did it", instead of bunch of failed entrepreneurs who write medium posts about why they think their startups failed to either feel better about themselves or to capitalize on their failure with the attention they get from the blog post (answer: they don't know why they feailed, and that's why they failed. The only way they know what they think they have learned through failure was actually something meaningful is to apply the "lesson" in their future endeavors and see if it works out. Until then, all your interpretations are nothing more than your opinion)

I would love to see more of these posts on Hacker News instead of failed startup post-mortems. Thanks for sharing!

Re: How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers

#29

Post by seanmcdirmid » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 8:21 PM UTC

volaski wrote: post #28

it's refreshing to see someone who actually successfully scaled a company write an article about "here's how we did it", instead of bunch of failed entrepreneurs who write medium posts about why they think their startups failed to either feel better about themselves or to capitalize on their failure with the attention they get from the blog post (answer: they don't know why they feailed, and that's why they failed. T…

There is a certain amount of luck/risk involved in doing a startup. You can do everything “right” and still fail.

Re: How my role as CTO has changed as we've grown from 1 to 100 engineers

#30

Post by worldsayshi » Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 8:21 PM UTC

volaski wrote: post #28

it's refreshing to see someone who actually successfully scaled a company write an article about "here's how we did it", instead of bunch of failed entrepreneurs who write medium posts about why they think their startups failed to either feel better about themselves or to capitalize on their failure with the attention they get from the blog post (answer: they don't know why they feailed, and that's why they failed. T…

I certainly agree that this is refreshing and a very interesting read.

At the same, because of survivorship fallacy, I think the best way to get insight into what makes stuff tick is to get a balanced mix of both success and failure stories.