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Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers?

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

#61

Post by elcomet »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #40
replyifuagree wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My conservative guess is three years. How about revenue growth rate? That's now right? Edit: one thing about revenue and profit is that there are businesses that operate off of graft that kind of throw a monkey wrench into those measures

I don't think you have understood my initial point. Please, read my first comment again. I'm not saying that Amazon won't overtake Walmart, but that tech companies benefit from future projections factored into their valuations, while other non-hyped businesses don't. If the argument is that "software engineers make the best CEOs", it seems more likely that companies in the software industry simply get higher valuatio…

All companies shoud benefit from future projections. It's just that other companies are growing much slower.

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

#62

Post by d33d33 »

As someone working in it-consulting for some big companies in germany, i can't confirm. It's usually the other way around - if a company grows too fast, they're tempted to make some smart engineer a manager. usually they will have a hard time coming from a very detailed world into the high level business world. besides being good problem-analysts, they are confronted with politics, strategy, leadership, ... - so all the skills that really matter at ceo level.

That being said, i can't agree with the statement that sw engineers make the best CEOs. But i tend to agree that a basic knowledge of IT/Software/Hardware is a must.

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

#65

Post by johannes1234321 »

Austin_Conlon wrote: post #58
rorykoehler wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The M1 chip and moving Jony Ive on points towards Cook being in a different league to Ballmer.

Also Microsoft lost all relevance in being a mobile phone platform under Ballmer. I can't think of a similar blunder from Cook, maybe losing mindshare from creative professionals, but that's a much smaller market that Apple could be making a comeback in.

At the same time Azure was started under Ballmer, which was important in Microsoft's reinvention and repositioning.

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

#66

Post by Austin_Conlon »

johannes1234321 wrote: post #65
Austin_Conlon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also Microsoft lost all relevance in being a mobile phone platform under Ballmer. I can't think of a similar blunder from Cook, maybe losing mindshare from creative professionals, but that's a much smaller market that Apple could be making a comeback in.

At the same time Azure was started under Ballmer, which was important in Microsoft's reinvention and repositioning.

Now if only Cook could reinvent the autocorrect feature.

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

#67

Post by okl »

GeneBond wrote: post #56
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 "…

Hi, I'm the original author. The point of the article is as follows: there is clearly a trend towards top market-cap companies being founded by software engineering CEOs, but why? The data regarding the trend is pretty clear. I believe there are two reasons: 1. Software has become a global form of super infrastructure that facilitate scaling, but there's more going on. 2. I believe that guys like Zuckerberg, Bezos, M…

> The data regarding the trend is pretty clear.

Apparently it's not, see parent comment. Doubling-down and ignoring the criticism is downright dishonest.

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

#68

Post by zuck9 »

kuu wrote: post #54
dogma1138 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what would that be exactly?

For me it's at least the following: - Attention to detail - Control of flow (if this then that) mentality - More binary thinking - Precision when describing (programming does not allow ambiguity) - A lot of frustration tolerance :) That's at least my experience

+ Learning confirmation and other biases

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

#69

Post by johannes1234321 »

Austin_Conlon wrote: post #66
johannes1234321 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time Azure was started under Ballmer, which was important in Microsoft's reinvention and repositioning.

Now if only Cook could reinvent the autocorrect feature.

Haha, in this case it was Sundar Pichai's fault ;)

Fixed the typo.

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

#70

Post by hntrader »

LMYahooTFY wrote: post #29
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 "…

Furthermore, IMO there are a ton of questionable assumptions littered throughout the article. The author goes into extreme detail describing exactly why software itself scales. This seems to have little to do with the CEO, though they keep jumping to comparisons between a software engineer's 'predictable' behavior, and the 'non-software' CEO's 'predictable' behavior.

Agreed. A plausible explanation for why the largest companies are tech companies is low marginal cost of replication combined with widespread appeal combined with network effects and IP moat which confers monopoly margins.

Other businesses are constrained in a way tech companies will never be (geographical, meat space constraints) and are in legacy industries where decades of competition has eaten away margins.

The explanation that the tech CEOs are better (although I'd agree with that statement in general) isn't the best one.

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