[sanderjd]

> A reasonably smart CEO can pretty much understand, in depth, every aspect of their business. But when it comes to tech, which is often the most essential part, they are left grasping, and must rely on the expertise of other people

I honestly really don't understand why this would be the case. Software isn't more complicated than any of the other aspects of the business. I think a "reasonably smart" CEO could just ... learn how it works? if it's really so critical to their business.

It's been a long time since I worked for a CEO who didn't understand software.

[monero-xmr]

If you run a trucking company, or a retail business, or a food company, etc. I believe you can understand to a fairly detailed level the logistics and “secret sauce” involved that makes the business tick, even if you are not the core employees operating with the skills and expertise.

But if you are a non-technical CEO and your core business is, say, enterprise SaaS software, you don’t fundamentally understand what the heck is going on, and if you have a key deadline and blow it, don’t really understand why. So if a new VP says they can cut your costs dramatically by offshoring everything to India, etc., or replace half these expensive engineers with AI, it seems as plausible as anything else. Especially given the fawning press and hype, and salesmen pitching you all day.

[sgarland]

The part of this argument that doesn’t make sense to me is that you’d think any CEO would have a reasonably decent bullshit detector, but maybe since they have to shovel it out so much, they forget how to detect it in others.

[sanderjd]

> But if you are a non-technical CEO and your core business is, say, enterprise SaaS software, you don’t fundamentally understand what the heck is going on

Why the hell not? It's not that hard! I think this sounds like laziness, honestly.

It is no harder to understand how your enterprise SaaS software works than it is to understand what makes your retail business or trucking company tick. If you're running a company in a business, I really think you should understand how the important pieces of your business work... Is that really so controversial?

[monero-xmr]

Every CEO I have worked for - and I am an executive - doesn’t know shit about software engineering. I mean I’m paid a lot of money for that. I just explain things in metaphors, but the non-tech execs are clueless