Yep, indeed. I'm technically the CTO of the startup I'm helping to found. And even though I'm 37, I haven't been in tech long enough to feel like I've earned that title, so my LinkedIn says Chief Software Architect (I made it up).

"It's interesting, these titles," Musk said. "You know that there's actually only three titles that actually mean anything for a corporation? It's president, secretary, and treasurer. And technically they can be the same person. And all these other titles are just basically made up. So CEO is a made-up title, CFO is a made-up title. General counsel, a made-up title. They don't mean anything."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXtjnNWUeAk

I thought General Counsel means you have a JD?

What Musk is saying is that from a legal perspective, there are only three job titles/roles that must be filled in a corporation. Beyond that, they could literally have titles like "Grand Chief Space Wizard" and "Cheesy Toast" for various jobs and roles. They could call the role of General Counsel "Asshole in a Suit."

IIRC Musk's job title in Tesla (?) now is 'Techno King'.

I think this quote is actually about a different point. The President, Secretary and Treasurer don't need any actual credentials for their role like a council needs a JD, but they have specific responsibility/liability in corporate legal structures.

The man is plainly over-reaching here, though perhaps it's an expression meant to bolster his public persona, and not an actual representation of his knowledge.

General counsel (at least in the Anglo-American context) means the senior legal advisor to an organization. As attorneys, they are required by law to have admission to the bar of the relevant jurisdiction, and to observe certain ethical standards and practices. This is not a made-up title and if it is that means there's a lawsuit for unauthorized practice of law that hasn't been filed yet.

Nope. I don’t know that you necessarily even need to have passed the bar exam in a given jurisdiction, much less have any kind of actual degree.

IMO, you’d be stupid to take a job like that if you didn’t have the degree and have passed one or more bar exams in the appropriate related jurisdiction(s), but I don’t know that it’s actually required.

You generally need that and typically reasonable experience wrangling different legal matters at scale. I guess Musk was just being Musk.

You'd need to be licensed to perform the various legal duties one expects of general counsel, but general counsel is not a protected title and thus anyone within the company could be given the title. Musk is right on this one.

I think that Musk is technically right.

Love it. Yeah I find myself mentoring junior engineers, writing code myself, reading documentation on tech I've never worked with before, designing email templates, writing marketing copy, crafting business plans, calculating sweat equity, etc etc. So at the end of the day...tf do titles mean

The funny thing is that I might assume a CEO/CTO at a small startup has less experience than a "Chief Software Architect." My assumption would be that the executives are founders and that there's not a minimum experience requirement for founders.

Interesting, hadn't thought of that. But wouldn't you assume the same of an architect at a small startup?

If you take the stereotypical Silicon Valley style start of 2-4 founders in their 20s or early 30s, someone is gonna be CTO, and there's a good chance they'll have relatively little experience. But a Chief Architect, I'd assume was an experienced early hire rather than a founder.

How long have you been in tech? I'm 41 and have been in tech since I was 17 :) I've been calling myself an Architect but after working with some experienced CTOs.. lets say I now know my value/position. If I ever work for someone else then that's the minimum position I'd take.

I've got about 10 years of experience, I didn't discover my knack for programming until my late 20s, unfortunately.

I was one of the technical guys on a Danish standardization project called OIO - Offentlig Information Online (offentlig means governmental in this case) - at one time they decided that we needed 'titles', so I and one other guy decided we would call ourselves XML Architects as a piss-take on another part of the project. Got the business cards and everything, but ADHD me lost mine.

Also, oddly, banks, where everyone seems to be a VP at the very least.

When I worked for a bank it was explained to me that early on foreign banks and financial institutions would not take a call from someone other than a VP, so they made all the bankers VP's to get work done. That was probably an over simplification.

Thing is, within the banking industry, these end up being fairly standardized titles. Titles mean less across industries, but within an industry, there's some consistency. In fact in banking, these are more standardized than tech industry titles are.

Typically at banks, the ranks are: analyst, associate, VP, managing director. Everyone eventually gets to VP, so it's not a particularly high level. It's similar to how tech companies have a level everyone is supposed to reach (often "Senior"). So, analyst is an entry-level role, associate is a mid-level role (2yrs experience, or a higher degree), and VP is a terminal role. VP is a wide band, though, so there's often sub-levels within that (whether publicly visible or not): managing director is a very high title at a bank.

I think this is mostly a technical requirement related to signing authority (e.g. for lots of things you need to be an officer).

Of course, the VP being the threshold target role for this is a choice, but it seems to be useful in contexts like banks to have some sort of dividing line.

In banks in engineering it was once explained to me, that dev salaries require a title (in comparison with other staff). Hence ordinary developers are often titled AVP, VP or AD.

My cofounder and I just used “Design Lead” and “Dev Lead” as our titles for nearly a decade - I only reluctantly took the mantle of “CTO” after taking outside investment, as they insisted on grandiosity - said it was amateurish to have small titles whilst employing 50+ people.

Titles are not standardized. Some companies a "member of technical staff" is a starting position and in others its the highest engineering position.

Sometimes they do! My last company worked with title companies and it’s a little “insulting” to send less than a director to meet with them.

oh yeah, this is super true of sales. everyone in your sales org needs absurd titles or nobody will ever speak to them. Just one of those things apparently.