Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?

news.ycombinator.com

11–20 of 32 posts

Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?

#13
post #12

What are the examples of the best contemporary CEOs (technical or not)? How about founders?

One person I'm inspired by is Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder and CEO of the dating app Bumble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Wolfe_Herd

When she was younger, she was kinda a bleeding heart type, selling tote bags and clothing to benefit environmental and human rights causes, then working in an orphanage. She went on to become the VP of marketing for Tinder, but left because of sexual harassment.

She went on to create Bumble, teaming up with a Russian billionaire (that part is admittedly shady). Within a few years, she herself became the youngest self-made female billionaire.

Since then, they've been getting mixed press... allegations of sexual harassment at the office (https://www.forbes.com/sites/angelauyeung/2019/07/08/exclusi...), a paid week off after COVID (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/22/dating-app-bumble-gives-work...), etc.

Overall I just think it's cool to see a woman who didn't grow up in tech get pissed off at the misogyny and forge her own path in reaction, despite all the doubt and vitriol she faced along the way.

Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?

#14

"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 gma…

Hey now, Google Talk was actually quite nice for the, what, six months of its existence?

Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?

#15
What about Gabe Newell? He went from lead dev of Windows to creating Valve and Half-Life and Steam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabe_Newell

Or Tim Sweeney of Epic Games, who made the early shareware ZZT and Jazz Jackrabbit, then went on to create Unreal, the game and engine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Sweeney_(game_developer) (hey, cool footnote... I was pretty pissed off when they changed their game Fortnite from an early cooperative PvE version to the PvP Battle Royale, emailed him and complained, and he personally replied with a thoughtful letter and then gave me a full refund... thank you, dude).

(And yes, of course Carmack, but someone mentioned him already)

Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?

#16

"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 gma…

Having moved away from Search and Gmail, I find the only Google tools I use now are Flights and Maps.

Maps can be replaced in most cases by Apple Maps, but I haven’t found a competitor for Flights.

Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?

#17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 gma…

Having moved away from Search and Gmail, I find the only Google tools I use now are Flights and Maps. Maps can be replaced in most cases by Apple Maps, but I haven’t found a competitor for Flights.

> I haven’t found a competitor for Flights.

Live near a major airline's hub, and commit to only using that airline. Then things are easy.

It's hard to provide a better flight search than that provided by a company that runs a GDS, although Travelocity didn't leverage it very well when they were part of Sabre. (Travelocity did have a calendar based flight search tool, working mostly from fare rules, but heavy caching made it frustrating to use when availability was limited, and FTC wanted them to get prices complete with all fees, which was apparently too complex to add later, so I think it was discontinued; we had to discontinue the cobranded version at Yahoo! Travel anyway)

Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?

#19
post #12

What are the examples of the best contemporary CEOs (technical or not)? How about founders?

One person I'm inspired by is Whitney Wolfe Herd, the founder and CEO of the dating app Bumble: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Wolfe_Herd When she was younger, she was kinda a bleeding heart type, selling tote bags and clothing to benefit environmental and human rights causes, then working in an orphanage. She went on to become the VP of marketing for Tinder, but left because of sexual harassment. She went on…

I'm not sure if I would consider the societal effects of Tinder and Bumble as positive and inspirational. If anything is has impaired gender relations, lead to the massive spread of STDs and arguably made the world a worse place.

And regarding Wolfe Herd herself, it's the eternal question, how "self-made" can one be as the child of a very wealthy and well-connected property developer of Jewish background? How many free attempts at entrepreneurship would she have had until eventually something panned out?

Re: Ask HN: Who are the technically competent CEOs in tech world?

#20

What about Gabe Newell? He went from lead dev of Windows to creating Valve and Half-Life and Steam. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabe_Newell Or Tim Sweeney of Epic Games, who made the early shareware ZZT and Jazz Jackrabbit, then went on to create Unreal, the game and engine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Sweeney_(game_developer) (hey, cool footnote... I was pretty pissed off when they changed their game Fortnit…

I believe Gaben was a PM (or PM manager/lead) during his time at microsoft. Lead dev is a bit misleading, since he led program management and has been listed as the producer, not the hands on lead developer. Not that he's not technical, just wasn't coding or leading technical development like a Carmack.
Post reply on HN