article thumbnail

What is a CTO?

Austin Startup

as I only improve by addressing my deficiencies.” —  Robert Reeves , CTO, Daticle Robert Reeves They collaborate with your executive leadership team to identify how technology can be used strategically to accomplish all company goals while mitigating risk. They will review and negotiate all related contracts.

article thumbnail

Ardent 1: Supercomputers Get Personal

Steve Blank

A Phone Call After I left MIPS Computers I was in New York tagging along with a friend (a computer architect whose products at Apple a decade later would change the shape of personal computing) who was consulting for a voice recognition startup. I’ve convinced the team you’d be perfect, come join us as the VP of Marketing.”

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

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

Steve Blank

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.) The Consultative Sale Our sales guy then quietly asked if there was any way we could help them. I was surprised to see that they were in the room.

article thumbnail

The Secret History of Minnesota Part 1: Engineering Research Associates

Steve Blank

Designed by the Navy’s OPS-20-G team and built at National Cash Register (NCR) in Dayton, this same Computing Machine Lab would build ~25 other types of electromechanical and optical machines , some the size of a room with 3,500 tubes , to assist in breaking Japanese and German codes. The professional staff owned the other 50%.

Minnesota 288
article thumbnail

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? Your CTO might be a great architect, evangelist, interface designer or incredible debugger. They might do anything !

CTO 168
article thumbnail

Women 2.0 » FounderDating: How I Found My Co-Founder

www.women2.org

She has consulted for a number of startups in the mobile, Saas, and consumer health spaces. Maio will give many personal and professional anecdotes for excelling in the design and technology industries as well as reveal what advantages exist for women entrepreneurs in tech. How to Quit Your Day Job: The Launch of Nestio. San Jose, CA.

article thumbnail

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.) Even if, in a previous life, you were a world expert in some functional specialty, like in-depth market research or scalable systems design, the compressed timeline of a startup makes it irrelevant.