I think its work experience that matters most with management. You need folks who are people oriented but understand the job that the folks they manage are doing, and the challenges that come with it, both obvious and non obvious, and can communicate the importance of such work to the broader organization
Ah, the cult of youth. It is cute, when it isn't killing startups with rookie moves.
It almost sounds like you think management is something like practicing law - like there's a set of rules that are revised on a schedule and they need CLE credits to keep them current.
> the Russian nuclear sub B-59, which had been running submerged for days, was cornered by 11 US destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph. The US ships began dropping depth charges around the sub.
Officers aboard had every reason to believe that their American counterparts were trying to sink them.
Cut off from outside contact, buffeted by depth charges, the most obvious conclusion for the officers of B-59 was that global war had already begun.
The submarine was armed with 10-kiloton nuclear torpedos and its officers had permission from their superiors to launch it without confirmation from Moscow.
Two out of three serior officers onboard agreed to launch, but unanimous vote was required.
I was specifically thinking of the idea that large formations being idiocy after the invention of gunpowder. Brett Devereaux's 4-part series "The Universal Warrior" had an excellent discussion of why a unit of soldiers might fight in large formation. https://acoup.blog/2021/02/12/collections-the-universal-warr... He's verbose, but thoroughly enjoyable.
The counter-theory is that as companies mature, they have to devote a disproportionate amount of time to maintenance. From that perspective, it's a risk-based approach to maintain the products and services that already have a market and instead effectively out-source the high risk operations of innovation. New companies don't have comparatively much to maintain, so they can focus on innovation. It's not quite such an either-or, but a balancing act. It's just easier to balance when you can outsource risk.
>Average CEO is 58 years old. Their first jobs were in the late 1980s.
I believe there's some neuroscience theory that may illuminate this. When we're young, our intelligence is more plastic and can more readily innovate. But as we get older it becomes more crystalline. What we may lose some of that novelty generation, we can gain in understanding the greater levels of experience. Experience is necessary for putting ideas in their appropriate context. I would argue that understanding context is more important at high, strategic-level positions.
Incidentally, marching large formations against each other has been the dominant strategy for most of Gunpowder's history. Only in the last 150 years did guns become lethal enough to make this a bad idea.
I can imagine a modern tech leader living in those times and giving the orders to charge the German panzer formation, sabers overhead.
The economics and tactics around technology has been revolutionized a dozen times over in the last 4 decades. Now, maybe a few rare individuals have kept up, but most likely, they all rely on outdated strategies from out of touch MBA programs & buzz words.
Its the same reason the market kills public technology companies' innovation and they rely on acquisition.
Its like gunpowder has just been invented and leadership still wants large formations marching against each other. "what if we invested in medical training and add washing our hands so we can keep more people alive?" "nah, more guns and marching"