Re:Founding engineer or Founder/CTO?
by fizx on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @05:04PM
(#15974281)
Having been on both sides of the situation a couple times, the distinction is pretty simple for me: do you have a seat on the board?
If you have a board seat, great, you're a real founder/CTO!
If you're not interested in the board seat or you're aware that you don't bring enough to the table to earn it, you're a good candidate for a founding engineer. You should be happy!
If the other founder(s) want you to be a founder/CTO without the board seat, run! They're just using the prestige of the title to pay you less, and will revoke it at the first convenience.
Re:Founding engineer or Founder/CTO?
by GuiA on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @07:01PM
(#15975097)
> If the other founder(s) want you to be a founder/CTO without the board seat, run! They're just using the prestige of the title to pay you less, and will revoke it at the first convenience.
Been there, done that, can confirm. That was a shitty 2 years, but I’m glad I learned all these lessons in my early 20s rather than later in life (with potentially a mortgage, kids, etc)
Re:Founding engineer or Founder/CTO?
by CalChris on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @07:50PM
(#15975390)
Most people don't understand boards and boards vary by company and over time. Brad Feld, author of the excellent Venture Deals, has another book Startup Boards: Getting the Most Out of Your Board of Directors.
Re:Founding engineer or Founder/CTO?
by jessmartin on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @10:06PM
(#15976076)
As a current founder and CTO-by-title of a product company (http://first.io), I think you're missing one path the founding engineer can take: run Product. Whether that eventually becomes a Chief Product Officer or Head of Product or whatever, the founding engineer often has a very strong sense of where the product needs to go and as the organization grows, they ship less code and instead drive prioritization and teams that execute on the higher-level product vision.
At least, that's what I'm trying to do. We'll see how it goes! :-P
Oh, and I have an awesome VPE already, which is a relief!
Re:Founding engineer or Founder/CTO?
by mooreds on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @11:50PM
(#15976519)
That's fair. I think that running product takes a lot of customer empathy and you're right, the founding engineer can definitely be the customer advocate. One worry I have would be whether someone in that role would be too interested in the 'how' of building, rather than the 'what' and the 'why' which are so important for product. Hope it works out for you!
Another role I left off was CEO, but that one seems less likely than product.
If you have a board seat, great, you're a real founder/CTO!
If you're not interested in the board seat or you're aware that you don't bring enough to the table to earn it, you're a good candidate for a founding engineer. You should be happy!
If the other founder(s) want you to be a founder/CTO without the board seat, run! They're just using the prestige of the title to pay you less, and will revoke it at the first convenience.
Been there, done that, can confirm. That was a shitty 2 years, but I’m glad I learned all these lessons in my early 20s rather than later in life (with potentially a mortgage, kids, etc)
If you don't know what a board seat entails, well then you know what research you have to do.
https://www.amazon.com/Startup-Boards-Getting-Board-Director...
At least, that's what I'm trying to do. We'll see how it goes! :-P
Oh, and I have an awesome VPE already, which is a relief!
Another role I left off was CEO, but that one seems less likely than product.
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/request-rate-...
Also gave a +1 to fizx for the note about a board seat. Important for sure.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Xm4Ewpw...