Re:Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Thei...
by kthejoker2 on Sunday April 28, 2019 @02:22AM
(#19769669)
Depends on what you mean by "basic work" - most of oil and gas leadership comes from the engineering and geoscience side of the house.
Jeff Miller of Halliburton was a field manager.
Mike Wirth at Chevron is a chemical engineer and Chevron lifer.
Ben can Beurden of Shell is a chemical engineer and a Shell lifer.
Clay Williams at NOV is a petroleum in engineer.
Bob Dudley at BP is a chemical engineer and a BP lifer.
Paal Kibsgaard at Schlumberger is a petroleum engineer.
Ryan Lance at ConocoPhillips is a petroleum engineer.
I could go on, you get the idea. These CEOs have definitely been in the trenches.
Re:Bullshitters: Who Are They and What Do We Know about Thei...
by exelius on Thursday April 25, 2019 @03:19PM
(#19751573)
I would disagree; most tech CEOs are sales & marketing people at their core. Especially once you grow beyond the startup phase.
Margins are fat enough in most tech verticals that operational efficiency often takes a back seat to driving the top-line. And once your growth starts to plateau, in comes a bean-counter CEO with a finance background.
Not to belabour a point sibling comments have already made but I think it's the other way around, actually. Much more common to have a CEO in tech who has been in the trenches than in other industries.
Compare the likelihood of a tech CEO having some software engineering/programming experience to the likelihood of an oil and gas executive having worked as a roustabout or a welder, or a healthcare industry exec having done rounds as a doctor or nurse.