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It's not rare in the Silicon Valley. Most managers in successful companies here are what you'd consider rare. Managers without real management ability don't last long here.

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And are they also good engineers? That's the hard part; the kind of obsessive focus usually required to be a good geek tends to impair the social skills required to be a good manager. Not always, I admit, but usually.

I did work in Silicon Valley, but not for very long; and it was in the late 90s, at Netscape, so my experience was probably atypical.

All great engineering managers I know were also great engineers. It's possible to use your geek focus to improve your social skills, I've done it :)

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