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Lessons Learned: What does a startup CTO actually do?

Startup Lessons Learned

So I initially gravitated to the CTO title, and not VP of Engineering. It became harder and harder to separate how the software is built from how the software is structured. If youre trying to design an architecture to maximize agility, how can that work if some people are working in TDD and others not?

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Convergent Technologies: War Story 1 – Selling with Sports Scores.

Steve Blank

Business customers were starting to ask for “office automation solutions” – word processing, spreadsheets, graphing software on a desktop. Their engineering teams didn’t have the expertise using off-the-shelf microprocessors (back then “real” computer companies designed their own instruction sets and operating systems.) Help them?!!

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Lessons Learned: The hacker's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

As a last disclaimer, please consult the definition of the word hacker if youre not familiar with the controversies surrounding that term.) Sometimes, a great hacker has the potential to grow into the CTO of a company, and in those cases all you need is an outside mentor who can work with them to develop those skills.