|
|
|
|
|
|
by ChuckMcM
3784 days ago
|
|
|
Wow, that is pretty painful. Short answer is getting hired as a CTO doesn't make you one, and there are people who fill the role but don't have the title, but perhaps most importantly the role isn't as well defined as some people think. Sometimes people exploit that. Some companies are so desperate to hire they will give someone pretty much any title they want (as opposed to money) so you see people without a significant track record in some sort of executive title role. But in all cases it is what folks do with it, not the title. In pathological cases it gets weird. I met a person whose first job out of college was VP of Engineering for a 4 person company which he used to convince a 10 person company to hire him as their VP Eng, which he used a 20 person company to hire him as their VP Eng, up the line until he was hired by a 1500 person company as their VP Eng where he was fired shortly after being hired. He really didn't have any clue as to what was needed in that role. That said, in "real" CTO roles there are several but they usually require someone who can both debate things in a business context and a technical context, or in sales oriented companie explain to the technical people of a client enough about the product so they will be comfortable buying it. In non-technical companies the CTO is often really just a glorified IT guy with a smattering of social network support to help marketing with their branding efforts. In very large enterprise companies there might he half a dozen CTO "titles" of which only 1 is actually an officer of the company as defined by the SEC. But none of that really matters for this author's rant. I can't figure out if they are amazed, jealous, or disgusted at the prospect of this person for which they clearly have no respect whatsoever holding a job with a title which they clearly covet. |
|
|
Indeed. It looks strange when companies have C-level executives without being the "chief" of other layer of executives. Also can be a bad message to new hires: even if you become a better leader, better manager, we already have a "chief", so tough luck.