At the same time though, 3 of the 5 largest companies in the US have CEOs with a background in software development/computer science. 5 years ago, 0 of 10 did. There's definitely a trend toward developers having more power.

Not to be contrary, but "citation"?

This (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_companies_by_r...) lists the 5 largest companies in the US as:

1. Walmart

2. Berkshire Hathaway

3. Apple

4. Exxon Mobil

5. McKesson

Walmart's CEO, Doug McMillon, career at Walmart was in distribution and then buying before moving to the executive.

Buffett had a background in business admin, economics and insurance.

Tim Cook has that CS background.

Daren Woods of Exxon Mobil has a degree in Electrical Engineering in the early 80s, which might be at best half a point.

John Hammergren of McKesson has a pure business background, with a Bachelors and Masters in Business Administration.

I think the poster's metric was largest in terms of capitalization and not revenue. The top 5 in terms of capitalization:

1. Apple 2. Alphabet 3. Microsoft 4. Amazon 5. Berkshire Hathaway

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

Depends on your definition of "largest company". Revenue is one metric. Market cap is another.

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

1. Apple

2. Alphabet

3. Microsoft

4. Amazon

5. Berkshire Hathaway

> Tim Cook has that CS background.

Does he? He certainly has decades of experience in computer companies, but his educational background was, to my knowledge, in industrial engineering.

That trend started further back than the last couple of years, as billg can confirm.

and yet, are those CEO's doing dev when they are being paid their large sums of money? They may have learnt something as a developer, but _doing_ development isn't their major money making activity.

jondubois said understand, not do.

Well you'd be a fool not to do or negotiate some mining upfront.