An old video of Elon Musk is going viral again, with the world’s richest man stressing what he believes is the single most important quality for anyone leading a technology company: deep technical competence.
“If somebody is going to lead something in technology, they must themselves be good at technology,” Elon Musk says in the clip. “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 Musk goes on to draw a vivid analogy, “To me, if somebody’s leading an engineering department and they are not good at that, that would be like a cavalry captain who can’t ride a horse… It’s not inspiring. A cavalry 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 even cites Boeing to illustrate his point: “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.”
The resurfaced clip has reignited debate online about whether major tech and engineering-driven companies should always be led by people with hands-on technical expertise.
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