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Businesses aren't about the products - they are about the units. A CEO markets units, he doesn't really care what they are units of.
Sadly, the accountants are in charge of most businesses, and they know "the cost of everything and the value of nothing" (the late, great pTerry).
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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All accountants know is how to cut costs and so boost the next quaterly dividend and consequently their bonus. Their thinking is very short term. They don't appreciate what such short term thinking is doing to the company in the long term.
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
modified yesterday.
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If the CEO was such a great engineer the role of CEO would be wasted on him.
Instead, it's his job to be grilled at Senate hearings when his senior engineers and advisers mess up.
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In comparison, Pichai also faces Senate meetings. Though a Metallurgical Engineer by training, he has worked extensively on software, for which he is accountable. He has a strong engineering background.
Calhoun, on the other hand, I'm not sure whether he's worked on stress/fatigue/fracture/impact/dynamics kind of computations, which are so very critical in aerospace.
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You are spot on!
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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The problem with dev/engineer types is they think they know everything, when in actuality nothing could be further from the truth. They generally suck at dealing with people, are immature, lack social skills. I could go on. This is not to say, non devs/engineers are inherently any better at this. It's to say that qualification alone does not a good CEO make.
The fact is, there's more than one type of intelligence. Denying that is no different than being a child who refuses to grow up and see the world while mentally living in their mom's basement. Denying that is no different than spending your entire life behind a computer thinking you're God, etc. because there's nobody else in your "world" to say otherwise.
Now, can an engineer make a good CEO? Sure. But a good CEO (or anyone) cannot know everything in the world. They need to be big picture people who can see trends, patterns, etc. that few can. The vast, vast majority of engineers are just the opposite - they focus on the minute details. Anyone can learn to be better at anything, but if spending 20+ years on CP has taught me anything is that very few people go outside their comfort zone and a lot of devs/engineers have lousy social skills.
Point is, only an engineer with zero life experience will think an engineer makes the best CEOs based on that qualification alone. If this sounds harsh, it's because you're thinking like an engineer and can't handle the truth. And senior business people tend to be more operations than big picture people. A good CEO brings people together, is a big picture person, has a vision with an idea of how the future will unfold. Operations would be more of a COO if anything for a company that size.
And yes, there are outliers. This is clearly a generalization.
This is not to say, non devs/engineers are intrinsically more mature. There are plenty of immature people in the world in various degrees. I'm just focusing on that group because we're on CP.
And no, this does not mean I think the Boeing CEO is good at their job.
And this doesn't mean a CEO should be ignorant of tech, the product, etc. They should have an understanding, but not necessarily on the same level as an engineer getting their hands dirty daily.
Jeremy Falcon
modified yesterday.
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Jeremy Falcon wrote: A good CEO brings people together, is a big picture person, has a vision with an idea of how the future will unfold.
While I agree with all you said in your post, let me point out that good CEOs, by your definition, are relatively few. A lot of them are more in the "can my part of the pie get bigger?" category (see recent news about >50bn$ pay package).
My biggest gripe is with the "diode effect" of CEO compensation packages. If company reaches certain performance metrics they get a certain amount of $$. However if company performance falls short, they don't bring any money from home; they just don't get those bonuses. This is very visible when it is some kind of economic shock and CEOs scour the basement to clean the company's books because, hey, it's not their fault, there were just bad economic conditions. They will not get bonuses but next year everything will be rosy and they'll bring home lots of mullah.
It's like telling investors: "We win together, you loose by yourself".
And yes, I know I'm oversimplifying the issue.
Mircea
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Mircea Neacsu wrote: While I agree with all you said in your post, let me point out that good CEOs, by your definition, are relatively few. A lot of them are more in the "can my part of the pie get bigger?" category (see recent news about >50bn$ pay package).
1,000% agree with that, buddy.
Mircea Neacsu wrote: This is very visible when it is some kind of economic shock and CEOs scour the basement to clean the company's books because, hey, it's not their fault, there were just bad economic conditions.
Unfortunately, true genius is in short supply regardless of the role we choose in life. And well, people can be weak/corrupt regardless of role too.
For the genius bit and completely unrelated side note, a lot of businessy types talk about leaving behind a legacy (it's all ego driven). But, the more they think that way the more its obvious they can't see past 100-200 years tops. Unless you're Jesus or Genghis Khan, ain't nobody gonna remember you or your company in 1,000 years. Just illustrating the point, not all executives are geniuses. 
Jeremy Falcon
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Boeings best years were under the leadership of a lawyer.
The previous CEO was Dennis Mullenburg, who was an engineer, and lasted less than 5 years.
While I agree someone more trained as an engineer should be the head of the company, that doesn't mean it should be an engineer. CEOs are the interface between the market and the company.
The bad CEOs face most of their attention on the market and little on what the company is doing to make sure the products are what the market wants and are of quality. They try to run the market, not the company. This is what Dave Calhoun did.
The good CEOs listen to the market, not try to run it, and spend their time on the products and issues within the company. They understand if you put out crap products that don't meet the needs of the market, you're going to lose the company. Calhoun failed to understand this.
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The decline of Boeing, HP, and other technology driven companies are all proof of your assertion.
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Let me turn that around: Were the senators grilling him engineers? If not, then they wouldn't know what pertinent questions to ask an engineer anyway, if an engineer was indeed needed to answer the questions.
And if the senators were provided with questions from engineers, then it's only fair the CEO should be able to consult with his engineers to respond to anything they ask him.
I've often been reminded that the job of the CEO is to maximize shareholder value. Reality not being so black and white however, if he ignores his engineers' warnings, then he's not doing his job either.
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Wordle 1,099 3/6*
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"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
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In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Wordle 1,099 4/6
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Wordle 1,099 5/6
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Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
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I learned a mouthful today id est "micromechanical polaritons in topologically nontrivial hyperbolic metasurfaces". Maybe it's a good pick-up line or discussed at the next cocktail party. Try saying that 3x fast w/ a mouth full of Cheetos.
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Reminds me of "Analytic and algebraic topology of locally Euclidian metrization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold".
I have friends in mathematics who claims that it actually makes sense. And then, Tom Lehrer lectured math at MIT; he should know 
For those who do not get the references: Tom Lehrer: Lobachevsky[^]
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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When I was in school we used to impress the girls when we said, "monostable multivibrator." Most thought it involved bedroom accessories.
(it's a 555 circuit configuration.)
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Rick York wrote: monostable multivibrator
That's one of those double-headed ones, isn't it?
Rick York wrote: (it's a 555 circuit configuration.)
Oh.
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Rick York wrote: 555
I remember those. Back in the day you could build a 5MW FM radio station with a couple of 555's and a handful of resistors and capacitors you had laying around. If you were really clever, the station could also solve N-variable partial differential equations during the commercials.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Gary R. Wheeler wrote: Back in the day you could build a 5MW FM radio station with a couple of 555's and a handful of resistors and capacitors you had laying around.
For a five megawatt FM station??
Religious freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make five.
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That just means we have it coming.
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