Why are so many successful founding CEOs software engineers? • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by apatters » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:08 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #295

apatters wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, he probably would not be the right hire to squeeze an extra 0.1% of performance out of Google search, but on any team which has to understand the needs of the legal industry (plenty of these at FAANG and non-FAANG companies) he could find himself in a senior role very quickly.

Isn't the 'senior role' aligned with what he said though? He'd have the industry insight to design product roadmaps and UX wire frames in a PM type role, but wouldn't touch the codebase because he's a lawyer who wrote some code a long time ago, not a lawyer who codes, and the non-lawyers his team can hire have much more experience in actual software engineering.

The silos that individual contributors perceive tend to disintegrate as you move up the chain. If you're the GM of some product at a FAANG that has exposure to the legal industry, what you often find is there are tons of great developers you can hire internally, but not many people who have expertise in that vertical and can also be dangerous around the code. If a lawyer with a CS degree and a bit of coding background wanted to cross over and join your dev org you'd probably be happy to open whatever doors they need.

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

#302

Post by dheera » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:12 PM UTC

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 think people are overthinking this in the comments.

Yes, there are exceptions to the rule. Especially in fields whose core business isn't software.

But in general it helps for founders to be able to, you know, actually build the thing they are trying to sell. I think that's all there is to it.

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

#303

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

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…

This is reflective of the different roles for founders vs. software engineers, though. A technical founder's job is to show that a new software-based way of doing things is worth doing. A software engineer's job is to do it well.

A necessary precondition for showing that something new & innovative is worth doing is usually to do it. It's not a sufficient condition though: you also need the risk tolerance to work on things new & innovative that may not work; you need the deep understanding of your problem to understand what the solution looks like; you need the location & social connections to access capital and hire real software engineers to scale your solution; and you need the judgment to hire the right people to fill in your skillset gaps. That's why most software engineers aren't off founding billion dollar companies.

Note that this applies to other founder-led enterprises. Fred Koch was a hell of a chemist before Koch Industries became a huge conglomerate. Warren Buffett studied under one of the greatest value investors (Benjamin Graham) on Wall Street. Carnegie started as a telegrapher and railroad superintendent before becoming a steel magnate. You need that operational experience and domain knowledge before founding a world-changing company.

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

#304

Post by dmoy » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #286

jbroson wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? You honestly think the Stanford PhDs who created Google couldn't get hired as basic SWEs? Seriously? I mean if true that says a lot more about the SWE interviews than it does about Stanford PhDs. I mean there are Yale JDs that fail the bar exam but no one would claim that the average Yale JD couldn't get hired as a Big Law associate or judicial clerk.

Google famously refused to hire Max Howell, the programmer who wrote Homebrew, which (based on Google's own statements) was used by 90% of Google's engineers at the time of his interview, because he couldn't invert a binary tree in the specific (but unstated) manner that the interviewer wanted. So it's definitely possible, indeed likely, that Serge and Larry wouldn't get hired at the Google of today. The "average Yal…

I don't know about the rest of that, but

> Homebrew, which was used by 90% of Google's engineers at the time of his interview

This is definitely not true.

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

#305

Post by gamblor956 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

dmoy wrote: post #304

gamblor956 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google famously refused to hire Max Howell, the programmer who wrote Homebrew, which (based on Google's own statements) was used by 90% of Google's engineers at the time of his interview, because he couldn't invert a binary tree in the specific (but unstated) manner that the interviewer wanted. So it's definitely possible, indeed likely, that Serge and Larry wouldn't get hired at the Google of today. The "average Yal…

I don't know about the rest of that, but > Homebrew, which was used by 90% of Google's engineers at the time of his interview This is definitely not true.

I don't know how true the % is, but that is what Howell claimed and several Google employees verified that his software was used by significant parts of Google's engineering staff.

At any rate, the point is that a guy who used software used by a large portion of Google's engineering team because it was superior to the in-house solution could not get a job at Google because he failed to answer a programming question in the specific manner the interviewer wanted for a type of problem he would never actually encounter on the job. And in that vein, Sergie and Larry would similarly have difficulty getting hired at Google because other than their original algorithm, which Google has not used in over a decade, they have no modern or recent software experience and would likely fail all of the programming interviews.

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

#306

Post by didibus » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:42 PM UTC

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…

Wozniak, Gates, Bezos, Larry, Sergey, Zuckerberg definitely all could code. I'm not sure why you are asserting otherwise?

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

#307

Post by jimbokun » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

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…

> Why are there so many software engineers who are not successful CEOs?

Because there are many more software engineering jobs in the world than CEO jobs.

> 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.

Which probably reflects more that the hiring process is broken, than that these people couldn't contribute to a business writing code.

The real problem is that, in addition to writing code, they would also start identifying business opportunities and new ways to improve processes and increase revenues and cut costs, threatening the perceived job security of the people in management above them.

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

#308

Post by didibus » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 5:46 PM UTC

I'm not sure why it's so surprising that tech companies are more successful when the CEO is tech aware. Understanding the challenges of software engineering and development and knowing the range of feasibilities for what software can and cannot solve with an intuition into the effort and cost of each is for sure an advantage as a CEO when running a software driven company.

I'd say if you don't have that perspective and are CEO of a software driven company, I'd make sure that you have a very close group of constant SE advisers to help you out.

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

#309

Post by dghlsakjg » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 8:54 PM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #236

crispyambulance wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is not a serious place on earth that would let me touch their codebase. It depends on what you mean by "serious". Software development is very much a free-for-all as far as backgrounds go. It attracts people from all disciplines. There are NO CREDENTIALS needed to be called a "software engineer", and it will remain this way for the foreseeable future. Every organization that develops software has its own rule…

> 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’m a ‘Software engineer’ in Canada. Have been at multiple companies. Do not have an engineering degree...

Professional Engineer is a protected title in Canada. Is that what you’re thinking of?

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

#310

Post by samfisher83 » Mon, Mar 15, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

mountain_peak wrote: post #212

kyberias wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Zuckerberg could get a job at Facebook. He obviously wrote a lot of Facebook's early code. > Gates & Allen allegedly didn't do much actual coding themselves but they certainly understood it. What? Gates & Allen similarly wrote "a lot of early code". Gates also acted as a Chief Software Architect in his final days at Microsoft.

My understanding is that the last application code Gates was involved in was the TRS-80 Model 100 [1] circa 1982; I taught my kids assembly on the Model 100 and think it's great. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRS-80_Model_100#ROM_firmware

Allen and gates where writing code when they were in highschool when no one was writing code. They also also got 1590 and 1600 on theirs sats when it used to be super hard. These are super smart and motivated people. You don't they could master leetcode after a few weeks of practice?