Never put a non-tech person to lead a tech team
Some startups are still making that mistake.
“Never put up a non-tech person to lead or supervise a tech team.”
Its like putting up a horse to lead zebras, sooner or later there will be communication breakdown which will slow down product launch and cost the company money, like real money.
Its like putting up a physicist to lead accountants, just because the physicist is really good with their physics.
Sooner or later it will fail because its not the same type of calculation. There are no electrons in balance sheets and there are no turnovers in gravity.
Many times, the problem is not that the horse and the zebras are not really good at what they do respectively, its just that zebra is not a horse kind of thing. Many core horse rules don’t just apply to zebras. For instance, Stripe comes natural to zebras, for horses it has be PayPal or something else but never Stripe.
Horses are most horseful when tied with ropes, for Zebras it’s the opposite. You can’t even ride zebras. Their impact can’t be measured in the same way and using the same metrics.
It will be like judging a cow by its goatfulness or judging a goat by its cowardice.
Such communication friction are usually not visible by members outside the team until several months into the damage.
