Ask HN: Why do hackers work for suits? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why do hackers work for suits?

3 pointsfreedaemon13 comments

Why do engineers and hackers work for non-tech people instead of the other way around? Sure this is changing a little, but why do hackers tolerate working for people who don't know jack about technology?

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It's because you'll eventually run into a suit if you go high enough in an established company. A company run by all tech people will not last as long nor be successful as one that at least has some semblance of a corporate structure.

The clue as a geek to find a place where your superiors are if not as technically adept as you are, at least trust you and your opinions and decisions.

But why can't tech people be the top management? Google has never had a suit as CEO. Don't think their VPs are suits either. But it's true for most of the business world.

Let me put this another way: are hackers inherently not suitable for top-management jobs, and there will always be suits managing them?

The difference is, hackers aren't inherently not suitable, but they're not inherently suitable either.

A good CEO can be a good CEO everywhere, but a good hacker isn't necessarily a good CEO anywhere.

Most the hackers I know are detailed oriented, complexed, focused individuals who love there craft.

As a rule, we see sales/marketing/raising capital, the politics of board meetings/HR as the fastest way to lose your soul.

So I guess we are "not suitable"

Google? My management chain is engineers all the way up to Larry.

You're telling me there's not one person in Google who's not an engineer/geek? Advertising people? Accountants? The CFO, Patrick Pichette, includes time at a management consulting firm and has an MA in "Philosophy, Politics, and Economics". I'm sure there's some geeks out there that do work for the financial people there.

Sounds like a suit to me. Don't get me wrong, there's lots of great suits out there, but that's my point, there's nothing wrong with working for competent suits.

The problem is hackers reporting to suits, not non-technical people reporting to suits. There are very few software engineers that report up through Patrick, and those that are are usually in support roles for other positions (eg. quantitative finance) with significant domain knowledge of that other position. Or they report up through technical executives with their own P&L.

There're non-technical managers in other areas that manage engineers, but I don't think we've hired any since 2007, as we found it doesn't really work out that well.

It's hard to find competent suits. And their understanding of tech is reducing, I'd suspect, as tech gets more complex.

LOL, I just gave Google as an example and I don't even work for Google ;-)

I work for money, not people. The less they know about technology, the more they're willing to pay.

So exploit them while you can? Interesting philosophy. I personally would hate working for a dumb boss.

Is there an amount of money that a 'suit' could pay you that you wouldn't hate it?

hackers, suits... not sure what these mean.

I work with people who have complimentary skills. Yes, some excel at some things more than others, but we're all people focused on a common goal.

Seems myopic to reduce people down to stereotypes.

Lots of founders have been great "hackers" and ok "suits" and also lots of founders who have been ok "hackers" and great "suits."

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