
CTO Lunches - mooreds
https://ctolunches.com/
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Roritharr
We had/have a group like this in my city. It's kept to a minimum of
interactions as it usually descends into war-story exchange quickly. It's a
great way to open up some backchannels that might come in handy, but I didn't
get anything more valuable out of it that reading some in-depth blog articles
wouldn't have given me.

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1337biz
Sounds like it was a social group were people enjoyed having some peers
chatting with. Not a research group on cutting edge technology issues.
Contentwise the real world can rarely compete with the internet...

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Roritharr
Oh indeed it was, it's just that at this point I can take any group of
friendly devs to chat and don't need much CTO glitz around it.

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gregoriol
Stopped reading at "Group sponsorship by developer focused companies", this
sounds so bad when just before they said "no recruiters, no sales people, no
gimmicks." => pick one of these two, can't have both at the same time!

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mooreds
I have been a member of the Boulder group for over a year and the sponsorship
is relatively new. Before then there was no website, just an email list, and
lunch was just pay as you go (which, with 15 people, was a bit of a pain when
we got the check).

As far as I can tell, the influence of the sponsor is limited to a thank you
at lunch and a shout out on the website. But I understand your concern about
the tension. This is something that every volunteer organization or meetup
group struggles with:

1\. It usually costs money to put on an event worth going to. Not a ton, but
food, beverages and space aren't free.

2\. People prefer free (and tech people tend to expect free).

I know another meetup that struggled for years trying to solve this problem,
and never found a satisfactory answer.

The answers I have seen work for groups are:

1\. Find sponsors and thank them

2\. Charge a membership fee

3\. Only do free stuff (meet in the library, or a park)

4\. Have the meetup organizer pay out of pocket (a different kind of
sponsorship)

5\. Be lucky enough to have already acquired some kind of income generation
(typically an older established gepup like a fraternal order)

It's a tough problem.

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CamTin
These are all ostensibly people with high-upper-quintile incomes at minimum.
Is it really out of line to just have everybody pay their own lunch check?

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mooreds
No, that's fine, and how things operated for years. Not sure how free lunch
really helps attract more folks. However, that doesn't help with other
infrastructure like the website, unless you want to ask organizers to pay out
of their pocket.

You'd have to ask Miles (who commented above) why he made the switch to
sponsorship.

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miles_matthias
I replied directly above, but the other reason sponsorship is attractive is
because it's hard to host a group of 20-30 people for lunch usually.

We've lucked out in Boulder & Denver where we can make a reservation for that
big, but a lot of places I've talked to want event fees, so I'm still going to
avoid that, but it'd be nice to have the option.

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aaronblohowiak
For a digital version, the Rands leadership slack is a nice virtual community.

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miles_matthias
I'm a member of Rands too, and I do think it adds some value, but I started
this group as an email group because I generally don't think Slack works well
for communities. It's one thing for Slack to be used at the workplace where
people are usually "always on", but for a community, it's hard to have high
value, long form discussions.

The email list discussions have blown me away. People will literally write 10
paragraph emails about their decades of experience, and because it's not in a
chat format, all members can check their email whenever and see the thread.

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seattle_spring
Is this for real CTOs, or "CTO"s of companies of 1, just out of bootcamp?

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miles_matthias
It's for engineering leaders. We don't have anyone who is the "CTO of a
company of 1, just out of a bootcamp", but here are some of the profiles of
people we have:

1\. CTOs & VPs of Engineering of VC backed, bootstrapped, or publicly traded,
companies with employee counts of 10-5,000. This makes up the bulk of the
members (probably 90%).

2\. Engineers who have started their own companies as CEO. They're engineers,
have been their entire life, and still do some coding because they love it,
but now they happen to also be responsible for other stuff. (5%)

3\. CTOs of new startups, out of an accelerator (usually Techstars, Boomtown,
or YC). They're teams > 3, so this type of CTO still does a fair bit of
coding, but also manages a few resources (either FT, PT, or outsourced) to get
engineering done. Their goal is to learn from all the experience in the group.
(5%)

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ChuckMcM
This is a better definition, the role of CTO changes dramatically as the
company grows. Steve Kleiman (NetApp's CTO) used to joke that a CTO was just a
VP of Engineering who failed at Managing people. And while it is funny its
also got a hint of truth.

But when you look at Engineering leadership, when you're small (one
engineering team) that means the CTO can talk to any engineer and understand
and advise them on the technical goals of the product and the processes by
which that product is being produced.

As you get larger the CTO needs to be able to explain to a customer's
technical staff why their product is the way it is, and how that relates to
what the customer wants to do with it. At this point you are probably
mentoring more people than managing them, having hired managers for the day to
day.

Larger still and the CTO is not only helping customer's see the value, they
are watching the changes in the technology that are going to make the current
products obsolete in 3 to 5 years. They spend a lot of time looking forward so
that they can warn the engineering leadership when it is time to swerve.

Once you're an "Enterprise company" there are now lots of people who are the
CTO of this, or the CTO of that. But the actual CTO is an integral part of the
executive staff who is keeping the enterprise value up by, most likely,
working with the M&A team to acquire companies that will shore up gaps in the
strategy.

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miles_matthias
Founder of CTO Lunches here. (Thanks @moreds for submitting)

Ask me any questions you have!

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pouta
Not really a CTO when I only have 3 people in my team, should I try to join?

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gregoriol
CTO is just a title. I'm not in these groups but I think (and hope) it's not
about the title, but about the things you would talk about.

You could be CTO in a company of just 1 and having a lot of interesting things
to bring to a discussion, and could be a CTO in a company of 10'000 and be
dull and worthless in a discussion. You could even not be a "CTO" but a
skilled dev with experience and a lot of interesting things to say.

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stereobit
Would love to have a London group

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mothsonasloth
Dude there is already a tonne of things like this. Just go on Meetup for
London area (e.g. CTO craft London)

I'll be frank, most of the time these lunches / socials are a waste of time.

Why, well there are mostly two types of people that go to them:

* the wunderkids who are there to evangelize their amazing product that they built using Haskell and a C++ engine. They aren't really interested in anybody else (fair enough).

* the recruiters / poachers / ruby fanboys __, who are there to get you signed up.

 __sorry Ruby fanboys /fangirls; I had to pick on someone.

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miles_matthias
Preach!

This is exactly why I started this group though, to try to avoid this. I try
to avoid this with a few tactics:

1\. Every social event for developers or nerds like me has been awkward as
hell. No one wants to stand in the corner with a beer avoiding people, or
shouting over loud ass music. The lunch format has helped avoid that. I've
really found that breaking bread and sitting down with food in front of you
makes a big difference in the social interactions and the people that feel
comfortable coming. You end up making high value connections with the 1-2
people sitting next to you.

2\. Local captains are engineering leaders themselves, and they hand curate
the group, and kick people out if they're being all sales-y. I curate the
Boulder lunch, and it's all engineering leaders facing the same problems. No
one except engineering leaders are allowed to come. The only exception to that
is our first sponsor, name.com, who sends their 1 community outreach person to
eat lunch, chit chat (not a pitch to the whole group), and picks up the tab at
the Boulder lunch.

3\. The email list provides so much additional value to the group, and because
it's email (as opposed to group chat), people love writing long responses and
participating over time (sometimes hours, days, or weeks after the last email
in the thread has been sent), not just participating in the fleeting moment of
a group chat discussion.

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tixocloud
Would love to join but the challenge being that I'm north of UK - would love
to connect with CTOs outside of the UK to get a pulse of things around the
world.

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miles_matthias
That's what the email list is for :)

Join the waitlist!

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andrew_
It would be great if this was open to people who want to make the leap to CTO.
Sounds like a good opportunity to learn from others who are already there.

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miles_matthias
Apply with your background and we can take a look. That is one of the
intentions though.

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jordanas
Hi all, Just posting to add depth to the dialogue:

I run a community called enrich (joinenrich.com), which connects
CTOs/Engineering Leaders with their peers to form more real connections - so
you can call folks on a whim.

Total focus is on developing more long-term, authentic relationships. No
sponsorship. Ping me if interested.

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mooreds
Seems like a great idea. How often do people typically connect (weekly,
monthly, etc)? Who does the matching (you, random, the requestor)?

FYI, the hamburger menu on your mobile site is empty for Firefox and chrome.

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jordanas
pardon the delay here! We do the matching - based on historical data on what
makes a match "work." Groups formally connect monthly, but folks meet in
between meetings at their leisure.

And thank you on the hamburger comment!

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brokenwren
Let's be clear - CTO stands for Chief Technology Officer. If you break the
title into sections you'll have a clear picture of what that means.

Chief -> Top, big cheese, main dude (or dudette)

Technology -> Like computers and stuff

Officer -> Simple definition: "Officers are responsible for the management and
day-to-day operations of the corporation." You know, like making decisions and
helping the company be successful.

If you fit into that description, even if you don't have that specific title,
you are acting as a CTO. Lots of VPs of Engineering fit into that title. So do
lots of CEOs of software companies.

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robertk
Hit me up if you’re in Chicago.

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miles_matthias
Let's start a Chicago one :)

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JohnnyConatus
NYC group?

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miles_matthias
Shoot me an email!

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dmak
Tokyo Group?

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miles_matthias
Shoot me an email and we'll get it going!

