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Elon Musk on the most important quality for a leader at a technology company
“If somebody is going to lead something in technology, they must themselves be good at technology. If they’re going to lead something that involves complex engineering, they must themselves be good at engineering. They don’t necessarily need to be the best engineer on the team, but they need to be very competent in their field. This is incredibly important.”
Elon continues:
“To me, if somebody’s leading an engineering department and they are not good at that, that would be like a calvary captain who can’t ride a horse… It’s not inspiring. A calvary captain must be able to ride a horse. They don’t need to be the best horse rider, but they must be competent in this regard. Otherwise they cannot evaluate the talent of the team, and they don’t understand the technology that’s being developed.”
He gives Boeing as an example:
“I don’t want to pick on the [former] CEO of Boeing [Dave Calhoun], but he’s got a degree in accounting. You want to have someone who knows how airplanes work running an airplane company… I think that’s pretty important. I think it’s vital.”