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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?

#241

Post by langitbiru »

ls65536 wrote: post #196
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…

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" cou…

Techcrunch called it the dual PhD problem. One example is if you understand the traditional finance, you'll have an easier time when building a DeFi application on top of Ethereum.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/19/the-dual-phd-problem-of-to...

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

#243

Post by JoshTko »

GeneBond wrote: post #39
ab111111111 wrote: post #30

What this seems to show is that CEOs in a particular sector often have expertise in that sector. And that Tech is currently the most highly valued sector as measured by market capitalisation. To find evidence of Software Engineers being the best CEOs overall you'd really need to find examples of them running non-tech firms successfully or examples of non-Software Engineers running tech firms poorly.

I'm the original author, and I certainly believe that there are all kinds of great CEOs. What I am saying in this article is that software engineering CEOs are breaking out due to the super-infrastructure that is software, and that guys like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are using software to speed the value fulfillment cycle -- see https://iism.org/post/glossary-value-fulfillment-cycle-68

This would be easy to prove if SE are disproportionately represented as CEOs in non software companies. My bet is this is not the case.

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

#244

Post by dragonwriter »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #194
comeonseriously wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... 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

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

No, most of them don't, because most of them aren't themselves working at the apex.

The people working at the apex fall for the Apex Fallacy, including the ones that think they don't but think that the whole field tends to.

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

#245

Post by ryandrake »

dilDDoS wrote: post #230
ekam wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your “careers” page is 404’ing FYI

Looks like they need to update their careers link from "careers-old" to "careers".

I guess they really do need software engineers!

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

#246

Post by mywittyname »

replyifuagree wrote: post #49
rorykoehler wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it remain to be seen with Tim Cook. Cook is and has been knocking it out of the park on all fronts from product strategy to share price.

I think it took a while for the Ballmer effect to kick in at Microsoft. Organizations have creating new things baked into their DNA, and it does resist corrosion. So I am curious to see if Cook can avoid squelching that like Ballmer. Operations is great to have and Cook is really good at it. Focus on ops can destroy the creative process though. I figure another 8 years and we'll know for sure (Ballmer clocked in at 1…

Cook is 10 years into his tenure at Apple. Since Ballmer took over in 2000, we can look at the period between 2001 and 2011 for comparison.

During that time, their stock price fell at least 10%. The launch of Windows Vista was bungled (XP outlived Vista). They had a string of failures in the phone market, before finally abandoning it. They had a string of failed acquisitions, including Nokia. Remember the Microsoft Stores?

Azure was the only real lasting success acheived under Ballmer.

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

#247

Post by omgwtfbbq »

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…

Of course since most Startups are using the Leetcode/FAANG style interview loop the OP probably wouldn't stand a chance of passing without months of study.

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

#248

Post by Grustaf »

necovek wrote: post #172
Grustaf wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it remains to be seen if Tim Cook is another Jobs/Gates or if he is instead a Ballmer No that doesn't remain to be seen. Tim Cook is clearly one of the most successful CEOs of all time. Compare Apple now to Apple when Jobs died.

If Apple ends up tumbling down in the next, say, 5 years, with Cook still at the helm, what would that say about Cook as the CEO? To me, Apple seems to be in the Microsoft's home-run stretch where they dominated the market with 99% desktop penetration for a while, but no clear "where next". Apple certainly won't fall because of their sheer size and momentum (just like Microsoft never did), but we look at things diffe…

If they stumble in five years, which seems incredibly unlikely given that there’s a billion people that love their iphones more than almost anything, he would still probably be the most successful CEO in history if you consider shareholder value created.

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

#249

Post by sebmellen »

tener wrote: post #231
dogma1138 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a reply to you personally well not just but to everyone else... A) I think you greatly underestimate what other engineering disciplines bestow not to mention require B) Really? Have you seen modern software development practices? barely functioning MVPs, vertical slices, pivoting and hacks galore.... Like personally I would wager that most programmers do not understand exactly what they are building when…

> A) I think you greatly underestimate what other engineering disciplines bestow not to mention require What makes you think I underestimate those other disciplines? I do not. The other disciplines tend to focus on tangible rather than on abstraction. Programming (if you want to actually be good at it) requires you to tackle abstractions all day long. My theory is that that ability translates (in some people!) to bei…

Electrical Engineering is full of abstraction.

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

#250

Post by theflyinghorse »

Jenk wrote: post #240
bluefirebrand wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are NO CREDENTIALS needed to be called a "software engineer" In the USA, maybe that's true. In Canada, for instance, there are legal requirements to being able to call yourself an Engineer. That's why "Software Developer" is used.

I don't think that holds any weight. See this example I just picked off a search: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/958535/Software-Engi...

That's an Americansim in a job posting.

Likely the company wants to use the same language in US as well as in Canada. Noone I know in Canada is called Software Engineer, we all refer to ourselves as Software Developer.

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