HACKER Q&A
📣 rxm233

Should the CTO of an AI company be a scientist or an engineer?


Asking this to HN might result in biased answers, but I'm interested if people think of applying "AI" (broadly) as an engineering problem to solve or one that requires some kind of scientific thinking about what's under the hood. Or does this depend on what exactly is meant by AI?

  👤 sergiotapia Accepted Answer ✓
Are you creating AI or are you applying AI to enhance or create new workflows?

If you're applying, you need an engineer who can build product and ship it. Not a scientist.

If you're creating new AI or models, you need a scientist who can actually do that work.

👤 MattGaiser
Probably depends on what exactly the product is.

For example, many consulting firms do not really sell technology. They sell handholding for organizations scared/unable to figure out technology and they quite often screw up the actual technology itself without any real consequence. There are plenty of companies where whether something actually works is not a key determinant of sales/revenue.

👤 moomoo11
I have no idea what you make.

But if it’s a “pure” AI solution then I feel like the CEO should be the AI engineer or person who came up with the idea or first iteration of the product.

CTO should probably be in charge of making deals with AWS/GCP/whatever and setting a technical direction for the company. CEO should try to be the person who is the image of the company as they make deals with people who will actually buy and use the product.