

Ask HN: What would you consider to be the roles/duties of a CTO? - dreadsword

Asking in the context of an organization with a large labour pool (i.e.: warehouse workers), and some key technologies (operations software, vendor connections, etc) --- but not a "technology" company per se.<p>Obviously this depends on the industry, and specific business, but I'm just looking for general 30,000ft perceptions. I would imagine it to include things like managing IT operations (i.e.: keeping the lights on), capacity planning, capex decision-making, etc. What are your thoughts?
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itsprofitbaron
Here's how I see it:

Chief Technical Officer = Someone who looks at the market, trends, how their
competition or potential competition are evolving their product(s) & trys to
anticipate users demand within ~5 years. In other words a CTO is someone who
uses their knowledge of tech to make money _but_ they don't think about the
exact details; they hire people to do that.

However, in order to help the CTO companies usually have a CIO (although that
role is considered to be diminishing):

Chief Information Officer = Understands tech & uses it to reduce expenses &
contain cost of growth

