Besides Elon Musk. I know Apple, Google and Twitter CEOs are just administrators.
Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?
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Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?
#2"technically competent" is a broad word. would you classify Zucks as being "technically competent" about every single technology at Meta, just because he coded the og version of Facebook
Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?
#3The job of a CEO is not technical competence.
Knowing how to work the computers is not the only valuable or difficult skill. Managing a large company is not something a software engineer could do.
Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?
#4Technically competent is a big grey zone IMO. For example, I am sure Musk knows the details, limitations and technical aspects of the welding that takes place at SpaceX, but my guess is he isn't competent to do it.
That same example could be used for most of technology. I am sure Musk understands ML at a pretty solid level, but ask him to build or train a model and my guess is he wouldn't show "competence".
I think technical competence is also different then "could do it", e.g. I think Musk, Zuck could sit down and figure out most software related tasks. But it isn't a good use of their time. They have a good enough understanding of the technical limitations and requirements to lead people in product creation which has proven immensely valuable.
Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?
#5"Are just administrators"
A bit of a casual comment. Current Twitter CEO was the CTO before. Satya nadella and sundar pihai both were fairly technical when they started. Even Zuckerberg won't fit your definition because he coded facebook initially in PHP/Mysql but what it is today is probably s lot more technically complex.
And anyway, the job of a CEO of a large public company is not to be technically competent. They just need to understand technology.
Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?
#6Old but good, there is a nice post by Joel Spolsky about Bill Gates https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/06/16/my-first-billg-rev... Strangely, it never has a big discussion here.
Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?
#7The job of a CEO is not technical competence. Knowing how to work the computers is not the only valuable or difficult skill. Managing a large company is not something a software engineer could do.
A CEO should have technical advisors they can trust. Multiple advisors who sometimes disagree with each other, because technical information is loaded with opinions which, even if they don't masquerade as fact, can influence a decision.
Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?
#8The job of a CEO is not technical competence. Knowing how to work the computers is not the only valuable or difficult skill. Managing a large company is not something a software engineer could do.
> Managing a large company is not something a software engineer could do
That is essentially saying that people who are software engineers have only one set of skills.. which is just false obviously.
Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?
#9"technically competent" is a broad word. would you classify Zucks as being "technically competent" about every single technology at Meta, just because he coded the og version of Facebook
The Zuck was in the just got lucky category. Facebook was the right product at the right time and he wouldn't be able to recreate that again. Look at all the garbage churn his company has spat out. It's only the acquisitions that have been successful and he spend a lot to buy the majority of stuff that totally failed.
Google is exactly the same. Apart from search then really the only thing they got lucky with was gmail. The rest is a graveyard of garbage.
Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?
#10John Carmack just founded a AGI startup and raised 20m. Not sure if he’s wearing CEO title but arguably technically competent.