CTO Think Podcast

When a CTO is juggling multiple responsibilities, people, and projects, what is the best use of their time? Randy, once again, tells Don to put down the keyboard and quit coding stuff!

This week, we shall rant! The term "Clean Code" is a vague and irresponsible phrase to use regarding programming and Randy will have nothing of it. It's time Uncle Bob's cute money-making catch phrase was put to pasture.

In honor of the second week of the college football season, Randy and Don discuss three programs, UCLA, Tennessee, and FSU, falling into disaster scenarios and compare each with CTO failures at technology firms. We keep the football/sportsball strategy discussion to a minimum, but we do eventually call out Tennessee as the "Steve Ballmer" of college football schools. Go Rocky Top?

Debate on starting with vanilla JavaScript or diving into frameworks, importance of mastering languages first, reflections on Haskell and JavaScript origins, role of Node.js in backend dev, balancing learning with practical application, advocating for personalized learning styles in programming.

Discussion on the debate of startups hiring a CTO, importance of technical expertise vs. non-technical leadership, challenges with non-technical CTO's decisions on technology, and reflections on a poorly presented article sparking future discussions.

Exploring challenges of coding as we age, focus on hydration, diet, and productivity. Discussing evolving perspectives in mindful coding and the impact of age on workplace productivity.

With hacking stories dropping on a seemingly daily basis, the question keeps coming up about application security: Should you build your own user authentication or use an external service? This week, Don and Randy discuss the Buy vs Build debate around auth, and whether the high costs of outsourcing outweigh the high risks of rolling your own.

Randy reacts to a Tweetstorm about Lambda School using his former experiences as a bootcamp teacher to add some perspective

The podcast discusses the challenges and benefits of using Go as a programming language, including the team's learning process, frustrations with testing, and the importance of continuous improvement. They also highlight the positive attitude of the engineering team and their transition to using Go in their software development process.

CTOs discuss the concept of a 10x engineer, emphasizing the importance of empathy in engineering teams and the challenges of working with 10x engineers. They also touch on the significance of understanding business objectives and integrating software into the employment market.