Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

I think the obvious lesson here is when society becomes reoriented around a new field (in this case software), people with experience in that field are going to do well.

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#5

Post by sebmellen » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:21 AM UTC

Does anyone find this methodology lazy, if not disingenuous?

- Google/Alphabet's current CEO is a materials engineer [0]

- Apple's current CEO is an MBA with a degree in industrial engineering [1]. Jobs, the founding CEO, was also not a software engineer.

- Amazon's CEO, Bezos, was a software engineer [2], but it's widely known that he didn't do programming work for Amazon. I don't think he would consider himself a "software engineer" today. There is a HN regular who was an early Amazon employee and has talked about this (his name now escapes me).

That makes 7/10 of the "top 10" companies in this chart headed by non-software-engineer CEOs!!!

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundar_Pichai

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Cook

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#6

Post by anxrn » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:23 AM UTC

sebmellen wrote: post #5

Does anyone find this methodology lazy, if not disingenuous? - Google/Alphabet's current CEO is a materials engineer [0] - Apple's current CEO is an MBA with a degree in industrial engineering [1]. Jobs, the founding CEO, was also not a software engineer. - Amazon's CEO, Bezos, was a software engineer [2], but it's widely known that he didn't do programming work for Amazon. I don't think he would consider himself a "…

Getting an MBA does not make you not-an-engineer. From the article [1] you linked, "He earned a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering".

Also, the article is referring to founding CEOs, and hence referring to Page/Brin and Jobs/Wozniak, not Pichai and Cook.

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#7

Post by modeless » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:23 AM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #2

Alternatively, experts in a field that's changing the world are more likely to start companies in that field.

Yeah, also drawing conclusions from just the top ten companies is silly. But how do software engineers do managing non-software companies? Elon Musk is doing well. I guess you could count Amazon as retail instead of software. What other examples are there?

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#8

Post by sebmellen » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:27 AM UTC

anxrn wrote: post #6

sebmellen wrote: post #5

Does anyone find this methodology lazy, if not disingenuous? - Google/Alphabet's current CEO is a materials engineer [0] - Apple's current CEO is an MBA with a degree in industrial engineering [1]. Jobs, the founding CEO, was also not a software engineer. - Amazon's CEO, Bezos, was a software engineer [2], but it's widely known that he didn't do programming work for Amazon. I don't think he would consider himself a "…

Getting an MBA does not make you not-an-engineer. From the article [1] you linked, "He earned a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering". Also, the article is referring to founding CEOs, and hence referring to Page/Brin and Jobs/Wozniak, not Pichai and Cook.

Yeah, but that doesn't make him a software engineer. And he never practiced as an engineer either [0]. I know plenty of people with physics degrees who ended up in accounting and people with arts degrees who ended up in software. Your degree doesn't determine your career or what you actually end up doing.

[0]: From Cook's Wikipedia article: After graduating from Auburn University, Cook spent 12 years in IBM's personal computer business, ultimately serving as the director of North American fulfillment.

Also, needless to say, Jobs was not a software engineer either.

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#9

Post by anxrn » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:29 AM UTC

sebmellen wrote: post #8

anxrn wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting an MBA does not make you not-an-engineer. From the article [1] you linked, "He earned a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering". Also, the article is referring to founding CEOs, and hence referring to Page/Brin and Jobs/Wozniak, not Pichai and Cook.

Yeah, but that doesn't make him a software engineer. And he never practiced as an engineer either [0]. I know plenty of people with physics degrees who ended up in accounting and people with arts degrees who ended up in software. Your degree doesn't determine your career or what you actually end up doing. [0]: From Cook's Wikipedia article: After graduating from Auburn University, Cook spent 12 years in IBM's persona…

Sorry to have to ask this, but did you read the article? It explicitly addresses this.

> *Wozniak obtained a master’s in computer science in 1987 and does code. Though Jobs was brilliant and technically savvy, Jobs clearly didn’t professionally code; he did contribute to creative and technical designs

Re: Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

#10

Post by anonytrary » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:33 AM UTC

Intelligent people make the best CEOs. Software engineers are probably more intelligent, on average, than others. I think it might be better to look at IQ+EQ and see if there's a correlation there instead (although that data is probably not feasible to obtain).