

10Gen CEO Dwight Merriman Still Writes His Own Code - diegogomes
http://www.betabeat.com/2011/10/10/10-gen-ceo-dwight-merriman-still-writes-his-own-code/

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meghan
Thought this ohloh graph might be interesting:
<http://www.ohloh.net/p/mongodb/analyses/latest>

~30% of the commits on mongodb are Dwight.

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diegogomes
#cool. very impressive!

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patrickod
Writing code every as a CEO now and again is a nice thing to say but it isn't
a scalable approach if you want to maintain that code properly. You can't just
expect your C(E|T)O to drop everything that they're doing when an unexpected
bug pops up. Great for the morale, but bad for the code.

~~~
quanticle
Why not? Of course you can't have the CTO drop everything when there's an
unexpected bug, but I do think there is value in coding, even for "upper"
management. Even looking in on the code from time to time can give you a
snapshot of where the product is at and in which direction it is evolving. If
that direction is different from what you expected, you can ask the
programmers why they chose to use the approach they did.

I think the most important thing is that the CTO does not place his or her
code above the code of the individual maintenance programmer. The worst thing
he or she can do is somehow mark his or her code as "untouchable". Untouchable
code is bad code, regardless of how well it works or how well it's written. It
doesn't adapt to changing requirements like the rest of the application, and
the rest of the application has to go out of its way to accommodate it.

However, as long as he or she makes it perfectly clear that his or her code is
just as subject to change and modification as everyone else's, I don't see why
the CEO/CTO can't get their hands dirty now and again.

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cliftonk
I'm curious if there's anyone around that codes more than Chris Wanstrath [1]
(Github's CEO). He's a beast. And someone we should all look up to.

[1] <https://github.com/defunkt>

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omarqureshi
For a CEO, it's impressive how much in touch he is with MongoDB, its
functionality and what it is capable of. You should see him talk, he really
knows what he is on about.

~~~
nestlequ1k
Agreed, if you are able to make it to any of the Mongo events, don't miss
seeing Dwight talk (particularly about MongoDB internals). He's an even better
lecturer than my favorite college professor.

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latch
Their CTO, Eliot, seems to spend the vast majority of his time coding. I'd say
it's the result of a technology-focused company versus, what seems more common
these days, as a 'product' company.

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nosh
In case you are curious: <https://github.com/dwight>

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slyall
I knew a company where the CEO was a coder, wrote much of the original code
and sometimes coded.

The smallish company had ISO 9000 and an anal change control procedure for
Network and System changes. By contrast the programming team had little/no
change control or testing.

One day the CEO made a change to the code and blew away the customer database
(or at least a substantial proportion of the data in it). Everybody just
shrugged their shoulders, restored from the overnight backup and wrote off
that days data/work.

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smackfu
That does not seem like a plan that will scale well. I think this kind of
thing inevitably ends up like the Zuckerberg anecdote, where the CEO
eventually has no time to code because being CEO is a full time job, but he
still does it to prove he can.

~~~
bborud
If 10gen make it big: perhaps. And then again, perhaps not.

The fact that this guy spent 10 years as the CTO of a company and was still
capable of producing a piece of quality software like MongoDB says that this
guy is isn't quite like other people. Very few people who make it into the
executive ranks (and stay there for a decade or more) manage to stay sharp
enough to actually write a coherent piece of code. Much less a piece of code
worth building a company on.

However such people do exist. Years ago I had the pleasure of working with a
fellow who was nearing retirement age. We worked on a project together and he
was learning a new programming language. As the weeks passed I slowly learned
that he used to be an executive, but found this work boring after some years
and wanted to return to the floor as an engineer. I also learned that he
worked on software for the Apollo program.

I have no doubt that if 10gen become very successful he might have to dial
back his level of direct involvement. But if he is the brains behind MongoDB,
it would only be natural that he stayed involved in the project.

As an investor I'd see this as a plus. If nothing else then because it proves
the CEO does have some brains and is less likely to be a business dullard.

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Bartlet
Chris Wanstrath, CEO of GitHub, still writes meaningful amounts of code as
well.

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diegogomes
It's good to know this kind of stuff, since we're heavy users of mongodb
here...

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cienrak
Would it bother you if he had shifted into a management role? Or just less
inspiring.

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bborud
cool :-)

(I'm a VP at a large company and I write code as well)

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latch
I was an AVP at a large company...it had 6+ CEOs....hundreds of directors +
managing directors...thousands of VPs...thousands of AVPs.

Point is, large companies throw titles around like candy. Also, I hate to
burst your bubble, but programming at a large company is very different than
programming at a start up (especially one on of the rarer technology-focused
startups like 10gen).

~~~
bborud
wow, I just love it how you managed to make that many assumptions about me in
just a couple of sentences.

