It’s not uncommon for tech partners (or Ctos, as they’re often called) to get kicked out. According to Forbes magazine in 2014, the average tenure of ceos of fortune 500 companies was 9.7 years, while the average tenure of Ctos was less than 4 years. Ctos are known as the “shortest” CXOS. According to Fang, there are two reasons for this phenomenon.

The reason a

Pure tech guy turned partner

If you don’t know how to manage, you will die

The most common technical managers tend to be “technical technical managers”, characterized by a basic lack of understanding of management. For a pure technical person, before starting a business as a partner and serving as a CTO, his growth path may be from primary development to intermediate development to senior development and then to architect, focusing on technology and ignoring the accumulation of management literacy, and then starting a business. Ichak Adis uses “enterprise life cycle” to describe how enterprises develop, age and decline. The enterprise life cycle can be divided into ten stages, namely: gestation period, infant period, toddler period, adolescence, prime of life period, stable period, aristocratic period, early bureaucratization, bureaucratic period and death.

“Technical technology managers” are common in companies from gestation to toddling, especially in infancy, when companies are just getting their products out and into the market.The requirements for technical partners at this stage are simple: get the job done.

When companies enter the toddler stage,Technical managers are required to participate in strategy formulation.At this stage, the team size has expanded to a certain extent, and the technical manager must manage the R&D team. With the increase of the number of people, the management level should be increased, and some management systems and processes should be built and some management tools used. However, “technology-based technology managers” are often still immersed in technology, people and things are very simple, lagging behind the growth of the company.

At this point, the CTO’s inner OS:How did this company get political? !

What the other partners are thinking at this point:What a blind young man, indifferent to the development of the company, just a worker.

Fang YunjunI once came into contact with an online education company. At that time, the industry environment was still good. Although the company was a start-up, it was backed by Peking University resources. The CTO in this story, with baidu background, is probably a P7 level architect who invested a lot of money in this company.

At first, his team prospered. As the business moved into deeper waters and the team grew, he led three directors, each with a dozen people. At this time, CTO’s idea was still very simple. He felt that the company’s business development was slow, so he had to build a large platform and build a middle platform, but he did not realize the importance of management and construction.

In the CTO’s view, the CEO only focuses on business development and does not worry too much about technical details. He does not need the SUPPORT of the CEO to make technical changes.

With no clear support from the CEO, what do employees think of the CTO’s move? I don’t have to tell you that.

But all we ctos do is worry: people don’t seem to support this…

Predictably, the last time the CEO talked to the CTO, he said, “Talking to you is too hard!” So the tech partner stayed with the company for less than two years, keeping his shares and leaving.

Reason two

By technology alone, Ctos cannot be relied on for long

* * * *Most of the domestic technologies are application technologies, which need to solve short-term problems. This natural attribute determines that technical partners are not dependent on them for a long time.

Most people have an illusion about tech companies — we’re a tech company, so our technology is built into ctos. It’s not. Most of China’s current technologies are applied technologies, and the technical problems that need to be solved are short-term problems. In the beginning of the company, the technology may grow on the CTO, once leaving, there will be very serious consequences. But when the team is more than seven or 10 people, mature and stable, the core part of the technology is not in the CTO, but in the front-line employees. If the value of technical partners is to solve short-term technical problems, then nature will not be needed in the long run. When tech partners get into trouble with the top of the firm, the first in line gets kicked out.

The CTO’s “eat the chicken” approach

CTO cannot passively respond to problems, nor should it be a “firefighter”. Technical partners should step by step, refine technology, learn management, understand business and understand strategy, until they can translate strategy into specific technical solutions and find ways to improve business capabilities through technical means. Take care of the technology and management first. The tech partners that are doing well today are basically growing with the company. The so-called “technical fix” is his strong ability to fight alone, “management fix” is to require technical partners with technical brothers to complete the company’s most basic bottom line. Technology is designed to serve the business, so the next step is to get familiar with the business and understand the business so that you can study the customer with the business partner. The next step is to understand the strategy, which in essence is to figure out how to build the core competitiveness of the company. Only in this step can a CTO sit on the top management table of the company. The last step is for the technical partner to learn management, and only after learning management can he come to the table and be pushed out as the representative of the company to meet everyone.

Learn more: Fang Yun AI R&D Performance

Wen 丨 kei

Coordinating editor 丨 babayage

The picture is from Pexels, based on CC0 protocol

This article was first published in “Fangyun AI R&D performance” Zhihu Institution number