Publishing ‘CTO Excellence in 100 Days’ book — Benjamin Shapiro // I Hear Everything

Quotes

• "The book is something that I conceived about three years ago. And for anybody listening, writing books do take a very long time. And that was birthed from a disappointment, and I felt around matching CTOs with CEOs." - Etienne de Bruin

• "A lot of CTOs know what to do in the second and third, and fourth 100 days, which is a lot of technical focus developers, engineers software development process, but in the first 100 days, it's a non-intuitive, relational, emotional journey to join with an existing system, an existing leadership team, and get rid of the shackles of whatever people perceive of the previous CTO requires a lot of intentional work to set yourself up so that you can go and do the work that they hired the CTO to do." - Etienne de Bruin

• "There's such a desire to showcase your technical chops, your technical expertise, that sometimes and I like to say this, you're working against your future self, either because you are too outspoken about how things need to improve too early on without any established trust. Or, because you have superior problem-solving skills, you might see the issues and what needs to be fixed immediately. But the humans reporting to you or working with you are not ready to hear everything you have to say." - Etienne de Bruin

• "What you perceive as providing value, i.e., fixing problems and identifying issues, is now being perceived as the new person who's just coming in and destroying everything that we used to work on for so many years." - Etienne de Bruin

• "With the CTO role, you might be inheriting a lot of broken systems and hastily made decisions. You're inheriting all the wrong choices that have been made for years and years and years. So, to come in and make sweeping changes can negatively affect the systems and the people who have been building those systems." - Etienne de Bruin

• "A lot of work can and should be done in the running up to your ultimate first day at work. Much of it concerns the interview process and the so-called show us your technology plan before you know as part of the interview process." - Etienne de Bruin

• "Be a sponge to all the information they will give you. So that before you make any commitments, or before you're trying to solve all the problems as part of your interview, I'd much instead prefer that you be known as someone who, wow, he asked a lot of questions or Wow, she was looking for some insights into where our issues originate from. Those are the types of characteristics that will help build the reputation with which you start at the company on day one." - Etienne de Bruin