Also it annoys me when authors don't even try to state what it is CEOs actually do, and what skills are necessary to succeed at those things. If you've got more than few couple dozen employees, it's not engineering...
(1) Ballmer, whether you like him or not, probably planted at least some of the seeds of the “new Microsoft”
And more importantly:
(2) The tech market as a whole - CEO-engineers or not - has been extremely bullish during that period
Any time I've tried to dive into the world of business / finance I find that it is just a completely different culture in terms of knowledge sharing. The technology culture is one of sharing; knowledge is extremely accessible. If you look hard enough, you can find the contents of a complete CS curriculum on Google. You can then find poignant on-the-job lessons just as easily.
Any time I dive into finance I'm just stuck reading old books and having no seemingly active community to discuss what I've learned with.
Understated hypothesis #1: Software engineers make good tech CEOs because they know the core product/service they are delivering. This is not new to tech - many organizations, such as big traditional engineering (industrial, electrical, aerospace, etc.) or successful law firms are often led by former practitioners (ie, engineers and lawyers respectively). Leaders who know their domain and processes intimately are bound to get better better results on average than those who don't.
Understated hypothesis #2: Engineering likely selects for individuals that are highly intelligent.
All these other ideas of software engineers leading businesses more creatively or efficiently (through process automation, etc) may be hypotheses worth testing, but certainly not foregone conclusions as some of these articles seem to suggest.
I think I'd have much less of a problem if articles like these formulated questions ("could it be that...?") instead of assertions. Discussions would be equally interesting, the style of the text needn't suffer, and I would respect the authors more for their intellectual rigor.
I often felt alone, as every other computer nerd felt like a caricature, rigid, deeply unfun and unnecessarily draconian in their lifestyle. It was a huge relief to go to university and see other smart people passionate in computers, who would still drink, smoke, be social and confident looking like fools.
I’m barely impressed by the job we’re tasked to do.
