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Why good people leave large tech companies

Steve Blank

The director had complained to his boss, the VP of Engineering, who admitted his hands were tied, as this was a “facilities matter,” and the VP of facilities reported to the CFO. So, this was a meeting of last resort, as the engineering director was making one last appeal to the CFO to keep his team in town.

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Lessons Learned: The hacker's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

Its common to find a hacker at the heart of almost any successful technology company. And we cant hire new engineers any faster, because you cant be interviewing and debugging and fixing all at the same time! Even with the highest standards imaginable, theres no way to hire just genius hackers. Just change it.

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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. If youre trying to design an architecture to maximize agility, how can that work if some people are working in TDD and others not? Instead, they find options and can communicate them to everyone in the company. I mean, have you seen other people?

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