Fred Wilson, a.k.a. “A VC” on the need for a great Chief Technology Officer:
Great managers are hard to find in any line of work. But managing developers is even harder. The better the developer the harder they are to manage. I assume its a bit like managing high maintenance entertainers. The best developers are artists who are often moody, are anarchists who have bursts of creativity and equally long periods of uselessness. They are strong willed people who will fight with their colleagues over anything and everything. The people who have mastered the art of managing these kinds of people are a rare breed and every great technology-based business needs one of them.
Wilson invests in start up tech companies, but the same can be said for the agency business. We’re all in communications technology today, as well as marketing communications. Providing strong leadership for the code monkeys is good stuff, but the ability to translate the thinking into English for one’s team members and clients is arguably even more important.
