What is a Chief Technology Officer (CTO)?
The job of CTO is often deeply misunderstood. People see the chief technical officer as the top dog techie,
the one who helps the programming or development team navigate technical intricacies.
That is not the role of the CTO; his/her key duty is to help the company's businesspeople, customers and
prospective customers navigate the complexities of technology. It is a business position -- not a technical
position--and it is a position that exists due to the gap in tech knowledge.
The technical team, itself, does not need this type of guidance; they are experts at designing programs and
ironing bugs out of programs. The CTO does make sure they are experts in the technologies that your
company deploys to make its product, because the CTO uses his/her long-time industry experience to hire the
right people to get that job done for your company. But the CTO does not micromanage these programmers
once they are in place, lest s/he annoy them and undermine their concentrated work.
Instead, the CTO serves as a seasoned gatekeeper, fighting off the constant bombardment of tech hypemasters who divert the company's focus with inflated claims about the latest miracle tech.
An experienced CTO--including a rented CTO who leaves after getting your company on the right footing-won't fall for promises that defy tech gravity. S/he won't abandon time-honoured and, sometimes, thriftier
solutions for the promise of instant riches, knowing that technological get rich-quick schemes often hurt the
bottom line of cash-strapped start-ups without good results.
If a CTO does not know his/her stuff, not just from studying CS in school but from seeing which methods
succeed or fail to solve real-world business problems, then everyone and everything will lead your company
astray in an industry that overflows with buzz and hype.
The current fad for machine learning, for example, could easily lead someone who is not very technical to
make very dumb, very costly mistakes regarding how ML can and can't be used. But the current fad for
machine learning might be irresistible to an infatuated, inexperienced CTO......It might sound good as gold.
And it is good for a fad's hypesters; they make money by feeding this stuff to your inexperienced CTO. It is
not good for your start-up’s future, your investors' bank accounts, your personal bank account, your
employees' bank accounts and your creditors.
On the practical side, unless you really know what you're doing, every vendor is going to persuade you that
their silver bullet is the perfect solution for whatever technical "problems" your company faces.
Unless you really know what is technically possible and what isn't, you'll fall into the common trap where
many CTOs get stuck: tool-happy programming ... Inexperienced CTOs drive their programming teams insane
with the tool of the week, but worse, they drive your company's expenses through the roof.
Remember: Needless expenses can drive your company out of business faster than anything. Assuming you
have a marketable and vetted idea, invest in high-quality, carefully selected programmers. But do not fall for
every tech trick that knocks on your door; all solutions are not time-tested and equal.
To get you to that point--the point where your well-staffed company is focused on things that have the
potential to lead to an actual profit--you need a CTO who has been around the tech world, seeing which tools
produced the best end results in different types of companies.
You can't gain that kind of experience in school, nor from absorbing industry hype like a sponge.
The CTO doesn't need to be an expert at any of the technologies except for the key tech the company uses,
but s/he does need to have better than average ground-level knowledge of most solutions, including the
business ones.