Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups

#31

Post by koonsolo » Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #29

koonsolo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my personal opinion, so don't take it too hard. But your post triggers my BS alert. First of all, how many CTO's do you know? And how many of them are good? Second, is this "mentor-mentee" thing real, or just something business coaches and get-rich-quick gurus claim? Never seen it in the real world. I'm an old timer. Most of my experience comes from experience. Most of my intellect comes from books an article…

> Second, is this "mentor-mentee" thing real, or just something business coaches and get-rich-quick gurus claim? Never seen it in the real world. Have you ever learned from one of your more senior coworkers or peers? Worked alongside someone who showed you the ropes or helped you level up your skills? Then you've been a mentee. Have you ever taken time to guide new hires or junior coworkers in something you're famili…

Sure I had those, but it's more explicit when you are one of the many programmers taking advice from a senior programmer.

In the case of a CTO, since it's a unque role, you have to go outside of your company to get mentored. And that doesn't seem so straight forward to me. Because asking a colleague about a problem you are facing is way easier than calling someone and talking about your problem at your work.

Maybe I'm ignorant about this topic, and maybe such things are more normal in US than here in EU. Such things go really against my nature, but I aslo never seen such relationship outside of the same company.

Re: Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups

#32

Post by sponaugle » Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

simonw wrote: post #17

jb1991 wrote: post #9

What exactly would be the audience for this? I’d be worried about someone coming in as a CTO who would actually need a list like this.

I don't think I've ever met a CTO who wouldn't benefit from a list like this - or who would deny that it would be useful. The secret to getting good at management is to acknowledge that it is a huge, deep and learnable set of skills. The best managers I know are the ones who constantly seek to improve their skills, and "do the work" to improve.

"I don't think I've ever met a CTO who wouldn't benefit from a list like this - or who would deny that it would be useful."

The most valuable thing for me, and I am a CTO, is exactly the reminder of the breadth of the list. Most of the areas of the list are things I am familiar with, but it is easy to let a few areas fall short. One of the key expectations of a CTO is broad expertise, which is a tall ask.

Re: Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups

#33

Post by kdeldycke » Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

Same here for Engineering Managers: https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-engineering-team-manage...

With an emphasis on how to transition from developer to a management position.

Re: Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups

#34

Post by skullgrid » Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #25

yowlingcat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's true, these articles don't teach you that much as a CTO. The most leveraged way to learn how to CTO is to work for a good one and keep the curiosity level high. The next way after that is to cultivate good relationships with CTOs you look up to and develop a mentor-mentee relationship. The next most leveraged way to learn how to CTO is to just do it. Ultimately, reading the material on these lists is a v…

This is my personal opinion, so don't take it too hard. But your post triggers my BS alert. First of all, how many CTO's do you know? And how many of them are good? Second, is this "mentor-mentee" thing real, or just something business coaches and get-rich-quick gurus claim? Never seen it in the real world. I'm an old timer. Most of my experience comes from experience. Most of my intellect comes from books an article…

I have a pretty good relationship with my boss (not a CTO, but a member of the executive leadership at my company). I definitely do consider her a mentor to me, and I am certain that she considers me a mentee. Over the last few years she has explicitly gone out of her way to help me improve my leadership skills. Not saying that this is kind of relationship is common or not, but it does exist.

I do agree with the overall content of your post, though.

Re: Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups

#35

Post by tpmx » Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

sponaugle wrote: post #32

simonw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I've ever met a CTO who wouldn't benefit from a list like this - or who would deny that it would be useful. The secret to getting good at management is to acknowledge that it is a huge, deep and learnable set of skills. The best managers I know are the ones who constantly seek to improve their skills, and "do the work" to improve.

"I don't think I've ever met a CTO who wouldn't benefit from a list like this - or who would deny that it would be useful." The most valuable thing for me, and I am a CTO, is exactly the reminder of the breadth of the list. Most of the areas of the list are things I am familiar with, but it is easy to let a few areas fall short. One of the key expectations of a CTO is broad expertise, which is a tall ask.

> One of the key expectations of a CTO is broad expertise, which is a tall ask.

Being a generalist + working in many separate areas will get you there. It does take time to build experience. I guess you can accelerate it slightly by reading books, but really, most of the lessons are best learned by doing, I think.

Re: Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups

#36

Post by throwawayboise » Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 6:37 PM UTC

ido wrote: post #16

bombcar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays we don’t just rewrite from scratch - we create entirely new languages to rewrite IN.

Actually Joel did that too! Some visual-basic inspired language if I recall correctly.

IIRC he did that to support something that wasn't otherwise possible at the time, having the same code base run in ASP and PHP (i.e. Windows and Linux).

Re: Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups

#37

Post by water8 » Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 6:40 PM UTC

BEWARE: There are a lot of investors that will try and take advantage of your skills to build their business with the promise of equity that isn't real or can be changed or diluted on their terms. DONT be fooled into taking more salary over equity.

Re: Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups

#38

Post by yowlingcat » Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #25

yowlingcat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that's true, these articles don't teach you that much as a CTO. The most leveraged way to learn how to CTO is to work for a good one and keep the curiosity level high. The next way after that is to cultivate good relationships with CTOs you look up to and develop a mentor-mentee relationship. The next most leveraged way to learn how to CTO is to just do it. Ultimately, reading the material on these lists is a v…

This is my personal opinion, so don't take it too hard. But your post triggers my BS alert. First of all, how many CTO's do you know? And how many of them are good? Second, is this "mentor-mentee" thing real, or just something business coaches and get-rich-quick gurus claim? Never seen it in the real world. I'm an old timer. Most of my experience comes from experience. Most of my intellect comes from books an article…

> I'm an old timer. Most of my experience comes from experience. Most of my intellect comes from books an articles written by people who know what they are talking about. Claiming that the latter is a waste of time seems very wrong advice to me.

I wonder if you're making my point for me. As an old-timer, what you bring to the table that's more valuable than gold is hard fought experience -- not the things you've read. It's easy to read things, but to actually apply them and be responsible for their long-term consequences is rather different.

To answer your other question, I know quite a few CTOs. In particular, there are two that I know very well because I worked for them on the ground-floor building $1B+ startups at the seed-series A stage. So much of what I know came from observing what they did, asking for help, asking them to explain how they came to certain conclusions or made certain major decisions. I wanted to take apart how they did things even if I wasn't responsible for them, so I could put it back together and understand how it works. Not only that, but I kept in touch with them afterwards and found them very valuable sounding boards for when I gave my first CTO gig a shot.

Re: Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups

#39

Post by water8 » Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 6:43 PM UTC

ido wrote: post #18

Waterluvian wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in hearing more about the idea of being an effective CTO while focusing on also being a developer. I imagine it's necessary for small companies, possible for growing companies, and eventually impossible for sufficiently sized companies where the CTO role is at least 40 hours of your week.

I personally find it to become the case with as little as 5-6 developers under me (assuming they are good and I can trust them to program without needing me to step in and solve their problems of their own making on a regular basis). Also as someone nearing his late 30s I'm sometimes surprised how good some programmers are as young as late teens/early 20s! These rare talents mostly need me to prevent them from going…

Managing a team is just like managing threads. Keep them as autonomous and lock-free as possible

Re: Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups

#40

Post by yowlingcat » Sat, Feb 27, 2021, 6:44 PM UTC

staticautomatic wrote: post #27

koonsolo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is my personal opinion, so don't take it too hard. But your post triggers my BS alert. First of all, how many CTO's do you know? And how many of them are good? Second, is this "mentor-mentee" thing real, or just something business coaches and get-rich-quick gurus claim? Never seen it in the real world. I'm an old timer. Most of my experience comes from experience. Most of my intellect comes from books an article…

Perhaps we should add “Don’t say things like ‘The most leveraged way to learn how to CTO’.” to the list.

> Perhaps we should add “Don’t say things like ‘The most leveraged way to learn how to CTO’.” to the list.

Please leave the unnecessary snarkiness for other forums. I could have said "The most leveraged way to operate as a technology executive" but that's rather wordy. More than happy to engage with any substantive critiques you have with my point of view. It's what has worked for me, and it's based on my own experience.