[Sigia-l] Product Company Entrapreneurs (apologies for cross posting)

[Ziya Oz]

Christina Wodtke:

> why  don't more ID's, Interaction designers, etc become product
> company  CEO's?

Some of the answers can be found in the archives in at least two threads
that I can remember at the moment. Didn't C. Fahey already bet that this
would happen? :-)

In any case, this particular framing of the problem assumes that there's
something good and beneficial about Designers becoming CEOs. Since CEOs,
especially in a public company, do all sorts of things that Designers just
don't/can't/wouldn't want to do. (This from someone who founded and headed a
small design technology company before the dotcom era and is considering
taking a C-level position at a public company in the near future.)

J. Ive is not the CEO of Apple. Yet Ive has impacted computer and consumer
electronics industries in ways that no other CEO can match. Would Ive want
to become a CEO at Apple or some other product company? I'm willing to bet,
no. 

So there are other ways to fundamentally affect the course of a company,
enrich yourself, change industries and, yes, help mankind too, without
having to become a CEO. IOW, the simple answer to your question could be:
why bother?

----
Ziya

Respectable people do not write music or make love as a career.