Ask HN: Hacker's Perspective - Leadership Trends in Software Development

3 points by Wizzard8 14 years ago | 2 comments

Good Morning HN Family,

For starters, HN is one of the most vibrant, thoughtful, and supportive communities on the Web today and I am proud to be a part of this community. I'm a full-time developer by day (4 years in the game now :)) however, I'm currently enrolled in a Professional MBA program at the local University. I'm now taking a Leadership course and one of our projects involves "New Media Engagement" (essentially in a sense "crowd sourcing" a dialogue/discussion on Leadership). Because of how awesome the HN community is I thought I'd bring my research to this forum.

This discussion will help me greatly in my report out for my Leadership course. But enough about me this question is truly about you all.

As I look out over the landscape of our community (which I believe broadly encompasses: Software Development, Technology, Web Design, Entrepreneurship, etc.) I tend to notice a trend in our leadership. For the most part those we consider leaders in our community aren't the gentlemen/women doing the most hand-waving and evangelizing about what they support, instead they are often some of the more thoughtful, brilliant minds, and thought leaders in our community whom we respect for their talent. Although we have our various camps and flame wars I think largely my previous assertion rings true.

What I'm curious to understand, and hopefully the HN community can help me further develop this thought, is why doesn't this same trend tend to transfer well into other industries (i.e. Politics, Civic Organizations, etc.)? I realize this is a very broad stroke I'm painting here but I believe this holds generally. As a corollary, do you all think that this trend is truly reflective off our community? Do you think it (i.e. our typically higher levels of rationality) gives us a potential sustainable competitive advantage with respect to other industries moving forward? Other thoughts?

Thanks in Advance for your time and support!

caw 14 years ago |

I think that you may see this trend because of how recently computers became prevalent. As a result, the situation is more based on leadership skills rather than other factors (wealth, heritage, etc). I think in 30-40 years we may see a shift to be back in line with other industries.

As far as a competitive advantage, I would say that it doesn't matter. How is technology competing with other industries? The short answer is that we don't, at least directly. Technology enables other sectors rather than competes. A Web 3.0 company is not competing with a future hospitality or automotive industry. A technologically enabled company may have a better chance of succeeding relative to their competitors though.

If anything, the "brilliantness" of the tech sector will lead to more competition within the sector, and perhaps a faster rate of innovation than otherwise. Should this begin a feedback loop my comment about the shift in leadership in 30 years will not apply.

Wizzard8 14 years ago | |

Very good points. I guess I was thinking of interdisciplinary competition in terms of attracting top talent to our sector, not necessarily in direct competition in the marketplace for customers. But you're more than right in that our industry very much empowers other industry sectors which in turn will lead to more internal competition in tech and faster innovation.

So what in your opinion can we do in the here and now to keep our uniqueness intact in the long run?

I'd hate for our industry to begin to be marred by the staleness and greed of the status quo of other industries (i.e. biggest wallet, "royal tech monarchy", et al, win out over best ideas and innovation).