I think this was more honorary than anything. It sounds like he didn't necessarily have the skills necessary to be a true executive, but putting him on a team where he's managed by someone else would seem like a slap in the face. This was a decent way to keep him compensated fairly for his past contributions.
I've seen at other companies where people like this are moved into "R&D" so they can keep working on cool projects while the company can do what's needed to grow.
Personally I actually wish more liberal use would be made of this strategy. I've worked at a lot of companies where obstructionist employees are kept in their slots due to management's concern over the personal fallout (both for their relationship with the employee and for the employee's relationships with others).
It's none of my business whether they stay on payroll or not, and I don't mind at all if they do if that's what management desires, I just want them put in a sandbox where they can't do damage anymore. Scoot them over to R&D, give them a title with a nice ring to it, heck, even give them a pay raise, but just keep them out of the way.
I think he means it still wouldn't matter to him because someone like the guy interviewed would have obviously already contributed/was there early/etc.
We are talking startups: Your typical early employee that didn't grow past mid level dev is out of position by year four. Even though their options are vested, chances are that can't afford to exercise them, and will be worth zero if they quit. Therefore, firing those kind of people as a matter of course is probably not what they want. You joined early for the great equity (a bad idea in the first place). Imagine how bad it would be if you risked getting fired if you don't grow into a good architect!
It doesn't seem like more of a burn than leaving them in a position where they are regularly breaking things. Refusing to either move them into a position where they are more effective (read: less damaging) or provide the necessary training is worse than making up a new sidelined position -- it shows paralysis, inaction, and it's compounded by the negative effect such an employee has on his peers and subordinates (if he has any subordinates). Inaction on that matter can be crippling and reflects cowardice at the top.
The moved person cannot be compelled to accept the position if they don't like it. Move them out of the way, or if they insist, fire them (and this has happened to me -- I wasn't upset that they were trying to sideline me as much as I was that they were not straightforward enough for me to understand the nature of our disagreement until after the arrangement had already fallen apart (for the record, I didn't accept the sideline position)). Most likely the employee would accept the new position and start to look for employment external to the company if he/she was displeased with it.
I wouldn't call that the Peter Principle; he wasn't promoted above his skill set (per se) due to things like time in grade, which is what Laurence Peter wrote about. In the Peter Principle book the person causes damage through having responsibility without the ability to execute in that particular role.
As others mentioned it was more a great way to reward someone who now didn't really have a specific spot. This is frankly the most common use of the CTO spot. The best description I heard from a founder-moved-into-CTO was "Chief Talking Officer": they trotted him out to give talks but basically he had no other responsibility.
Great way to reward someone by not using their best skills and making them essentially ineffective?
He said he became essentially a reviewer placed too late in the development process to matter.
Peter principle concerns efficacy, not necessarily active damage.
"PR guy" (direct marketing) is actually a role many founders do well.
John Gage's [1] title at Sun was "Science Officer". But he sure did a lot of cool useful Official Science Stuff. He was also on Richard Nixon's Enemy List, which is the kind of community service experience that I am always impressed to see on a resume.
At Sun, if they didn't actually want an executive to continue working for the company, they'd promote them to Vice President of Looking for a New Job.
in most hierarchies, super-competence is more objectionable
than incompetence.
disrupts and therefore violates the first commandment of
hierarchical life: the hierarchy must be preserved.
In THE EVERYTHING STORE, which I happen to be reading, it's noted that Bezos told Kephan early on that he would have his job as long as he wanted it. This was Bezos's compromise, basically: stick to the letter of his promise while doing what he had to do for the company. As others have noted, it was not an example of the Peter Principle because it moved SK out of the hierarchy.
He failed to gain greater power in the organization and accomplish greater tasks after being promoted out of the role in which he was very competent. This implies that he wasn't very good at being a CTO. If he was, he would have had a bigger role in the projects and a larger team with which to accomplish his desired tasks.
This may have been intentional as a courtesy rather than accidental due to the Peter Principle, but the result is the same. It is the opposite of the Dilbert Principle, where incompetent people are promoted into a position at which they are sufficiently abstracted from real work that they can no longer do too much damage.
> He failed to gain greater power in the organization and accomplish greater tasks after being promoted out of the role in which he was very competent.
He didn't fail, as he was put in a role with no actual power. The Peter Principle is being promoted into a role you are incompetent at. He was shunted away into a ceremonial position with no power. He didn't even have staff.
> This may have been intentional as a courtesy rather than accidental due to the Peter Principle, but the result is the same.
I'm not talking about the ultimate result, I am talking about the definition of the Peter Principle.
Where does an awesome CTO get promoted to? It kind of seems like the end of the road, with the possible exception of CEO, but that position is probably occupied.
I agree that typically a CTO doesn't get promoted anywhere. In a smaller company, the role of an executive is about growing and evolving the business as a whole, and the technical strategy and choices that allow for that. I was CTO of a growing company for the past 4 years, and my concern was always around growing the business and the company.
No, he was likely promoted because he wouldn't cause much trouble as approving authority.
This is sort of being politically nice is rewarded in every institution. People like this are not given any genuine power per se. But since they listen to the powers and more or less do exactly as they say, they are put in positions where they can't be much trouble and are rather useful the higher authorities political goals.
