Originally Posted By: tonycarguy
There are many CEOs who came from an unrelated industry (it's common in high tech), and some are successful. I don't think there's a correlation between prior experience in the particular industry and likelihood of success.
Agreed- we can't predict how someone will perform at that level just by what industry they have worked in in the past.
This guy gets honesty points for saying "I don't know anything about cars." I'd rather a guy say that than try to fake it. The meat of the issue is what he does from there- does he learn about the industry and surround himself with people to handle the details? Or does he view his ignorance as an asset and (worse) look at others' knowledge as a hindrance?
It's kind of the same with my job- I fix computers. I know a lot about fixing computers. But I don't know jack squat about how this application or that application is supposed to work. So I go into a client's location and say "show me how it is supposed to work". Sometimes they look at me like I'm a moron for asking that, because they mistakenly believe that's a sign of weakness. When it's the opposite- admitting ignorance and asking to be shown how something works is an asset. YOU show me how it's supposed to work, and I'll figure out how to make it do that. My grandfather did the same thing in his career as a mechanical engineer. He'd get sent to these plants that make things he knows nothing about on machines he's never seen before. He'd go in and get the big picture from management, and then he'd go to the operator of the machine and say "what's wrong with it?" The operator would tell him, and then he'd get to work fixing it.
Being a CEO is sort of the same thing on a different scale- you go into a place and learn about the business and then set about fixing it.
(Although this guy seems to be an idiot. Evidenced by his "these are my pipes" thing at ATT. Hey idiot, that's how it works! SOMEONE is paying for those pipes! It's not like google just came in one night and hotwired themselves to his network. They pay for their pipes, customers pay for theirs, and ATT makes it work.)
