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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?

#191

Post by comeonseriously »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #176
isamuel wrote: post #109

All of the people on this list are "software engineers" in the sense that they have some rudimentary education in the field. Almost none of them could get a job as a software engineer at their own company, if they had to, because they would be completely unqualified. And I'm not looking down my nose at anyone: I have an undergraduate degree in CS, but I got it 16 years ago and then went to law school, and there is no…

> I have an undergraduate degree in CS, but I got it 16 years ago and then went to law school, and there is not a serious place on earth that would let me touch their codebase Interestingly, you might be wrong. There's a continuing push to get people in the industry who can code for startups wanting to disrupt the space. You'd probably be the lawyer who can code and any lawyer-adjacent tech company would love you. Wh…

> ... there are thousands of places that need basic code slung.

Not just "basic code". There are thousands of companies doing just as challenging work than FAANGs do. There's innovation happening all over the place.

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

#192

Post by isamuel »

baremetal wrote: post #181
isamuel wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a better way of putting the point I was inelegantly grasping at. The neighbor kid is just an industrious kid---they happen to be nailing up drywall, but it's not that nailing up the drywall is why they end up running Berkshire Hathaway (or whatever) later. It's that they're industrious, and have various other traits that---in some other context---would result in them doing whatever else. Maybe they turn into…

not to be pedantic but drywall is screwed in not nailed. i happen to be a software engineer who has also built actual houses.

You can do both. Usually, nails go along the outside and screws in the "field," but I'll confess that it's been 30 years since I helped my dad do it (I was a big help, I'm sure) so perhaps the state of the art has changed.

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

#194

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

comeonseriously wrote: post #191
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have an undergraduate degree in CS, but I got it 16 years ago and then went to law school, and there is not a serious place on earth that would let me touch their codebase Interestingly, you might be wrong. There's a continuing push to get people in the industry who can code for startups wanting to disrupt the space. You'd probably be the lawyer who can code and any lawyer-adjacent tech company would love you. Wh…

> ... there are thousands of places that need basic code slung. Not just "basic code". There are thousands of companies doing just as challenging work than FAANGs do. There's innovation happening all over the place.

Right, but the people who go into programming tend to fall for the Apex Fallacy.

There's probably a place nearby that needs a basic developer for writing

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

#196

Post by ls65536 »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #176
isamuel wrote: post #109

All of the people on this list are "software engineers" in the sense that they have some rudimentary education in the field. Almost none of them could get a job as a software engineer at their own company, if they had to, because they would be completely unqualified. And I'm not looking down my nose at anyone: I have an undergraduate degree in CS, but I got it 16 years ago and then went to law school, and there is no…

> I have an undergraduate degree in CS, but I got it 16 years ago and then went to law school, and there is not a serious place on earth that would let me touch their codebase Interestingly, you might be wrong. There's a continuing push to get people in the industry who can code for startups wanting to disrupt the space. You'd probably be the lawyer who can code and any lawyer-adjacent tech company would love you. Wh…

I don't remember where I read this (possibly even on HN at some point), but this reminds me of an interesting idea that has stuck with me over time...

Consider two broad but otherwise generally viewed as unrelated (however, not mutually exclusive) skillsets: A and B. Lots of people are great at A and lots of people are great at B, but the intersection of the two is generally small (perhaps "law" and "programming" could be reasonably argued as examples of A and B here). There are large numbers of people employed doing A, and similarly for B, often quite successfully in both cases.

Now, there's some much smaller set of individuals who have a reasonable grasp of both skillsets A and B. Recall that they're not mutually exclusive (are any skillsets, really?), just not often seen together. It seems that this set of people would be uniquely positioned to potentially provide immense value over the perhaps small (but even more marginally serviced) field of needs where A and B intersect. The value here isn't in the individual's capability for A or B in isolation, but in what they can provide where A and B cross.

I realise the above is a big generalization and perhaps hugely oversimplified, but it's interesting to think about the different, seemingly unrelated skillsets where there may be great potential from some cross-pollination of ideas to bear new fruit. I do think that "programming" in general, perhaps in some form not as it's conventionally understood today, is becoming somewhat of a new literacy, at least to the extent that there seem to be countless existing businesses or fields of inquiry that could benefit from programmers who are also experts in their traditional domains. However, one could also come up with lots of different examples for A and B above, which may not even include programming at all.

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

#197

Post by anyonecancode »

Another version of the question -- why are so many successful companies centered on software? Asked that way, CEOs with developer or software engineering experience isn't so surprising, but leads to the more interesting questions around software's prominent role in our current economy.

I suspect that within 25 years that mix will change as being a "software company" will become less of a meaningful distinction (and to some degree already is -- what is a "tech" company these days?). Every company will be a "software company" and won't lean as heavily on its leadership being having a specific background in technology.

ETA - ah, looking at comments I see others have already made the same point.

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

#198

Post by FpUser »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #176
isamuel wrote: post #109

All of the people on this list are "software engineers" in the sense that they have some rudimentary education in the field. Almost none of them could get a job as a software engineer at their own company, if they had to, because they would be completely unqualified. And I'm not looking down my nose at anyone: I have an undergraduate degree in CS, but I got it 16 years ago and then went to law school, and there is no…

> I have an undergraduate degree in CS, but I got it 16 years ago and then went to law school, and there is not a serious place on earth that would let me touch their codebase Interestingly, you might be wrong. There's a continuing push to get people in the industry who can code for startups wanting to disrupt the space. You'd probably be the lawyer who can code and any lawyer-adjacent tech company would love you. Wh…

>"When we think "programming", we think FAANG"

No we do not. Some of us do

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

#199

Post by patentatt »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #176
isamuel wrote: post #109

All of the people on this list are "software engineers" in the sense that they have some rudimentary education in the field. Almost none of them could get a job as a software engineer at their own company, if they had to, because they would be completely unqualified. And I'm not looking down my nose at anyone: I have an undergraduate degree in CS, but I got it 16 years ago and then went to law school, and there is no…

> I have an undergraduate degree in CS, but I got it 16 years ago and then went to law school, and there is not a serious place on earth that would let me touch their codebase Interestingly, you might be wrong. There's a continuing push to get people in the industry who can code for startups wanting to disrupt the space. You'd probably be the lawyer who can code and any lawyer-adjacent tech company would love you. Wh…

> You'd probably be the lawyer who can code and any lawyer-adjacent tech company would love you.

As a lawyer who can code (years of experience as a professional software developer and years of experience as a practicing attorney) let me assure you, this is not the case. There just isn’t that much overlap, despite the common wisdom that such a thing should exist, it’s very hard to actually find.

Also, not everything outside of faang is ‘basic code’ - there’s a whole wide world out there!

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

#200

Post by SavantIdiot »

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 "…

It reads like an ego stroke of how awesome software engineers are compared to all the other plebes in the world.

Also: being a monopoly helps.

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