Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Resources for chief technology officers, with the emphasis on startups

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 59 posts

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

#41

Post by yowlingcat »

koonsolo wrote: post #31
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'…

> Maybe I'm ignorant about this topic, and maybe such things are more normal in US than here in EU.

If you're ignorant about the topic, why not explore the other perspective with curiosity rather than gruffly dismissing it as provoking a BS sensor? Mentorship is an enormous part of the lifecycle of executive tenure of the ecosystem I participate in, which is the NYC startup ecosystem.

I've observed that when my colleagues have built a deep relationship with their manager during their tenure, often times, they gain that mentorship permanently whether they stay at the company or not. The reason the mentor does it is because it's just another version of the old adage of paying it forward -- they know that a job they land in the future could come from one of their old reports; in fact, they might even end up working for one of their old reports!

Investing time and energy into cultivating and keeping these relationships going is a large part of how my colleagues have continued to keep their career moving upward as they approach mid-career.

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

#43

Post by koonsolo »

yowlingcat wrote: post #41
koonsolo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

> Maybe I'm ignorant about this topic, and maybe such things are more normal in US than here in EU. If you're ignorant about the topic, why not explore the other perspective with curiosity rather than gruffly dismissing it as provoking a BS sensor? Mentorship is an enormous part of the lifecycle of executive tenure of the ecosystem I participate in, which is the NYC startup ecosystem. I've observed that when my colle…

It seems my BS sensor went off too fast ;).

I guess this mentality is common to startup scenes, but not really outside of that world.

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

#44

Post by jc01480 »

koonsolo wrote: post #11
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, on the other hand, would be worried when a CTO claims (s)he knows everything already. The more experienced you are, the more you realize how little you know.

Humility is a dwindling characteristic in modern times.

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

#45

Post by koonsolo »

yowlingcat wrote: post #38
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…

> 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 true that experience is harder to get than knowledge from reading. But I still think reading offers a huge amount of benefit that you cannot get from experience.

One thing is that it opens up a world that is broader to your own. Another thing is that it can provide clear mental models that you probably won't figure out yourself, and that you can observe only after you know the theory.

Let me give you a clear example.

Early in my career I had to manage a junior. At the time I was reading The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. I applied the "stewardship delegation" from that book to the letter. It worked perfect. In my 19 year career, I apply it all the time, with great success (it also works on your kids :D).

But nobody I know knows about it. I could have never learned one of the most important things, from experience alone.

Even when you look at people like Bill Gates for example, they also still seem to get great value out of reading.

Thanks for the conversation, and sorry for my snarky remark, I admit I was wrong judging you :)

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

#46

Post by mjul »

One of the most important skills is learning to communicate clearly.

You need to give up details and be able to express the key concepts clearly on different levels of detail and business/technical understanding.

Explaining this is something you will be doing again and again, so it is worth a lot of effort to get there.

I recommend iterating until you have an A4 with the skeleton you need explain all this. It will include key stakeholders/users/integrations, key technologies/protocols, key services/components and the high-level system landscape with key internal and external systems.

Notice that a good diagram for this mixes a lot of different views and formal notations.

The key idea is that you should strive to provide a skeleton on which your audience can place their understanding and fill in the blanks that they are interested in based on you explanation.

If you try to put everything there or follow a formal model like UML you will drown out the key concepts in the noise of the details.

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

#47

Post by staticautomatic »

yowlingcat wrote: post #40
staticautomatic wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 experie…

My comment is both a substantive critique of how you communicate and a commentary on executive communication.

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

#48

Post by agy »

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 find CTO title without knowing at least company size ambiguous. Engineering managers, directors are more constant across companies. Is there a big difference between engineering manager with a team of 8 working on a product and CTO with the engineering team of 8? I would say no. I feel that the list will be helpful for those who want to learn more about engineering leadership and soft skills.

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

#49

Post by zingar »

sponaugle wrote: post #30
dreamer7 wrote: post #2

My biggest challenge as a CTO is that, by nature, I'm singular in focus. If I am developing something I find it hard to context switch and review other developers' work. The best strategy I have found so far is to block certain times in the week solely for reviewing everyone's progress.

That is interesting. I'm a CTO, originally a CTO of a startup, now CTO of the much larger acquiring company. It is fascinating to see how different the CTO job can be across industries. I find my time is spent in almost the opposite direction, with the majority of it involving deep technical context switched rapidly.. and that really is the skill that I have need to refine the most - the ability apply high focus quic…

Interesting, how did you develop that skill?

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

#50

Post by riffic »

Gaessaki wrote: post #7

Would love to see similarly curated lists for other startup roles such as CMO, or CFO, if anyone has.

The great thing about 'awesome-' lists and open source in general is you can always start your own.

not trying to be snarky, just a friendly nudge.

Post reply on HN