The computer scientist CEO | Hacker News Reader

The computer scientist CEO

glinden.blogspot.com

32 pointswheels19 comments

I think there have been a lot of other CEOs who are highly technical. CS wasn't a common major when 50 year olds were going to college (i.e. a common age for present day CEOs), but a fair number have technical degrees.

Gil Amelio, who Steve Jobs displaced when he came back to Apple, was apparently highly technical (physics, where a lot of early programmers came from).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Amelio

As pointed out in the comments on blogspot, CS is hardly the degree with biggest focus on optimization. Try operations research, systems & control, economics or even the MBA!

The most common degree of CEOs hired into Fortune 500 companies is an MBA. Marissa appears to be the first computer scientist.

There are more. Eric Schmidt springs to mind. When hired into Google, he had a PhD in electrical engineering.

It's just a weird sentence in general, an MBA isn't a degree.

an MBA isn't a degree.

Its a Master's Degree in Business Administration.

Huh? MBA = Masters (degree) of Business Administration.

I apologize, I should have clarified. An MBA is a postgraduate degree and covers an umbrella of undergraduate degrees and walks of life. I don't see the comparability of the qualification with an undergrad degree in CS as the article suggests. I don't think it's as black and white as that and is disingenuous to say that an MBA presents a single type of CEO to compare to a CS engineer.

Eric Schmidt wasn't hired into Google when it was a Fortune 500 Company.

The article claims that "this will be a test of a new style of leadership," as if we have no examples of how a large company will run under a Computer Scientist.

To the extent you trust a single example, Schmidt/Google will tell you that a computer scientist CEO will fare running a large company.

The timing of his hiring seems only marginally relevant to the article's claim.

But I am glad more boards are beginning to recognize this.

Ginni Rometty also comes to mind. (although she only had an undergrad CS/EE degree according to Wikipedia)

An example in banking: John Thain, former CEO of Merrill Lynch (BSEE + MBA).

There's Bob Noyce.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_noyce

He wasn't a "computer scientist", per se, but he sure was active in the underlying hardware. Of course, this was an era when "computer scientist" often meant as much hardware as software. And once you start talking hardware layouts...

P.S. I see now that Greg is basically making the point:

Many computer scientists view everything as an optimization problem. People, work, politics, life, everything is a search (often of a dynamic space) to find a maximum near the global maximum... She is a computer scientist and appears to be leading like one. I suspect she views the company, people at the company, the products, even her own role, all as an optimization process, a search to find the most productive and most useful outcomes.

Well, the best "computer scientists" I recall were/are able to perceive that domain as distinct, or a subcategory, of being a human being involved in the world. While computational science is very useful, we are not to the point of reducing nor defining the human experience solely or primarily in its terms. (If nothing else, we aren't that smart and capable, yet.)

I get a lot of the messages behind this article, but it just throws around a lot of claims without any citations or proof whatsoever. Just can't take this seriously.

"she is the first computer scientist (MSCS or higher) hired in as CEO to a Fortune 500 company"

"The most common degree of CEOs hired into Fortune 500 companies is an MBA."

"She is not going to be the mad visionary of Steve Jobs, yelling at everyone while single-handedly designing breakthrough products."

On the other hand, I do wish it was more common.

What a BS, instead of putting people in boxes because of their sex or race, let's put them in a box because of their Masters degree.. I bet that if you take 5 CS grads you get 5 different management styles. (for posts like this I need a downvote button..)

I think the author's view on how Computer Scientists is a bit reductive. Not everything is an "optimization problem". While I believe it is true that a good CS major will seek to reduce inneficiencies throughout the company, there is also a lot to be said about "Creative Vision" and actually building innovative things. I think if you are seeking to grow, you probably need this latter quality more than cutting down costs and improving profits type of CEOs. Therefore Marissa Mayer makes a lot of sense. Furthermore I would be seriously interested in seeing how many of the MBA CEOs of fortune 500 tech companies have undergrad tech degrees.

Eric Schmidt. < Computer Science, UC Berkeley.

Marissa Mayer is a single data point.

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