Data nerds, computer geeks, science morons, I’m speaking to you. It’s the ever-prevailing cliché: the antisocial introverts who spend their days hacking away at some nerdy project that nobody understands. The freaks that push the frontiers of tech every day but still can’t keep up with the Kardashians.

The cliché goes further. If techies lack basic human skills like communicating effectively or cracking a funny joke, then they won’t make good managers. And don’t even think of appointing such people as a CEO.

Of course, this is a stereotype. Most techies I know — including myself — are interesting, multi-faceted people with exciting hobbies and beautiful personalities. Most techies I know score as high in human skills as they do in their area of technical expertise. Most techies I know would be fantastic managers and CEOs.

But that’s not the point. The underlying problem is that these clichés exist and that enough people still believe in them. That’s what is called the boffin fallacy: the belief that techies can only be good at tech, and cannot excel in other domains.

As a consequence, techies get encouraged to pursue an academic career or to stay in their companies’ R&D departments. The prevailing idea among many investors, advisors, and even colleagues is that techies are not as qualified as MBAs for launching their own company or embarking on a corporate career.

This culture of keeping techies out of business is especially strong in Europe and the Middle East. But it has some foothold in the US and parts of Asia, too.

This culture, however useful it may have been in the past, is causing serious harm. Not only does it push too many career paths into pre-modeled shapes. It also hurts the overall economy and its capacity to innovate. It’s about time we debunk the myth that techies can’t be great CEOs.

The economic growth of the last decades has been fueled by tech

It’s a fact: without technological innovation, we would be nowhere close to the living standard that we have attained. For the last two decades, much of the growth of the biggest stock indexes is due to tech companies. At the moment, this is more apparent than ever: without the tech giants, the stock market wouldn’t have done much worse during the ongoing pandemic.

When you think about who is leading these stellar-performing companies, they’re all holders of a tech degree. Larry Page, Sergei Brin, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg are all techies turned entrepreneurs. That’s no coincidence.

That’s not to say that less technical people can’t lead their companies to outstanding growth. Tim Cook, for example, has been business-oriented since the days after he’d earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering. Other career CEOs do similarly remarkable jobs.

Nevertheless, the sheer ubiquity of techies in the C-suites of top-performing companies proves that they’re not incapable in the business world. Funnily enough, this phenomenon often doesn’t serve as an example to other companies and investors.

Rather, they see these CEOs with a tech background and extreme success as rarities and conclude that the average techie isn’t capable of anything like that.

The boffin fallacy

The boffin fallacy , in short, is the false belief that techies — typically people who have a degree in STEM, and who work in a tech-related area — are boffins. A boffin, data nerd, computer geek, or science moron, is believed to be incapable of doing marketing, finance, human resources, and any other business-related activity.

Most people acknowledge the existence of techies that excel at business, like the CEOs mentioned above. But they think that those are outliers and that the statistical norm is that all techies are boffins.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Not only do techies lead the top-performing companies of today. History is equally full of examples of tech entrepreneurs.

Benjamin Franklin, for example, invented lightning rods, bifocals, the iron furnace stove, a carriage odometer, and the harmonica. He also was the owner of a print shop, a newspaper, and a general store by the time he was 24, and eventually became one of the wealthiest men of his time.

Thomas Edison, inventor of the lightbulb, is another stellar example. He didn’t only power scientific breakthroughs, but also brought investors like J. P. Morgan on board, and distributed his devices to the masses.

Other examples include George Eastman , Marie Curie , and many more. These are no statistical outliers — they’re a clear demonstration that techies are capable of being entrepreneurs.

Why techies make good CEOs

In a world where decisions are based more and more on data, and where analytic capabilities and quantitative rigor gain more and more momentum, leaders with a technological background have a clear edge.

People without a tech background often put their soft skills forward as an advantage. Yet they fail to realize that soft skills are relatively easy to pick up and learn on the job, while quantitative skills take years of study.

I’m not saying that humanities are less skillful or sophisticated than sciences. I have enormous respect for people who are in the humanities — in fact, I almost pursued a degree in classic philosophy myself.

However, an engineer working on microprocessors won’t find it that hard to understand how to manage people, set up the financial system of a company, or do the legal stuff. Conversely, an HR manager or an accountant won’t be able to contribute a thing to the architecture of a microprocessor unless they’ve taken a few classes.

That’s not to say that techies know everything about humanities. They, too, get lost when two philosophers discuss the ins and outs of a passage in Aristotle’s Proverbs . It just so happens that microprocessors contribute more to today’s economic growth than the works of Aristotle.

In a data-driven economy, techies clearly have an advantage when it comes to their skillset. Not only can they make use of it when it comes to the product of a tech company. They can also learn the business side of things at least as quickly as a non-techie — if not faster, since business operations are becoming more and more quantitative, too.

Tech founders are the better CEOs, but they’re quieter, too

VC capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which backs companies such as Stripe, Lime, and Airbnb, puts it in excellent words : tech founders are often better than hired CEOs because they know the company from the inside out, they’re more courageous when it comes to changing the business strategy, and because they’re committed to the long term.

The first point is pretty obvious: the founder was there from day zero, they hired the first employees, and know the product in all its details. They also know the customer base pretty well and know about all the strengths and weaknesses of the company. This puts them in a unique position of expertise.

The second point comes as a consequence of the first: since founders made the base assumptions upon which the company operates, they’re more courageous when it comes to change them.

For example, when Steve Jobs rejoined Apple, he pivoted it from a computing to a personal product company. In hindsight, this was a genius move, but at the time most people thought he was mad. He had the courage because he’d built Apple in the first place, and because he knew what market needs the company was capable of serving.

The third point, long-term commitment, may not apply as much as it used to. These days, many companies get founded with a possible exit in mind. There are, however, many other founders who view their company as their life’s work. Not only are these types of founders less willing to sell their companies; they’re also more willing to make short-term sacrifices for long-term gains.

If these tech founders happen to confirm the cliché of being more introverted than their corporate counterparts, so be it. Research shows that introverts are better leaders anyway. Business success, so it seems, doesn’t depend on how loudly you talk, but on how good your decisions are.

How to tell if a techie isn’t fit for the C-suite

F rom this perspective, it seems almost absurd to appoint CEOs to tech companies if they don’t have a technical background themselves. Indeed, the research backs up this standpoint. There are only a few situations where it might be better to replace a technical founder with a career CEO.

They don’t listen to advice

Some founders are so in love with their own ideas that they don’t want other people to mess around with them. As a result, they might block out all advice.

Note that I didn’t say that they don’t follow advice. Some of the greatest business decisions have been taken against all advice. From Mark Zuckerberg who decided not to sell Facebook when he had the opportunity, to Reed Hastings who changed the DVD-service Netflix to a streaming service, tech history is full of decisions where founders preferred to trust their gut more than their board.

Founders should take advice into account, however. Even if they finally decide against it, they should at least have thought through all the options. Founders who don’t listen to anybody have slim chances of succeeding.

They don’t understand business goals

A techie-turned-entrepreneur can’t live only for their product; they need to understand the business side, too.

It’s not like in academia, where researchers throw a party if they’ve secured a research grant for the next two years. At this point, they don’t need to think about money until the next time they apply for a grant.

In industry, once you’ve secured funding, you get to work. You can’t take investments forever — instead, you want to be profitable at some point. Some founders are so in love with product development that they fail to recognize this extra dimension. If this is a chronic problem, it might be better to hire somebody to handle the business side of things.

They understand business goals but fail to implement them

Some founders — and, frankly, some managers and CEOs from all walks of life, too — seem unable to build a culture where goals and milestones get reached. A culture where every employee feels welcome and accepted, and where teams work productively and effectively.

Worse even, they might create a culture that is dominated by fear. This can lead to situations where employees don’t talk about problems anymore because they’re scared of being reprimanded. Eventually, this kind of leadership creates places where nobody wants to work.

The good news is that this last problem can be resolved in many cases through additional training. But again, if the founder seems unable to learn for a prolonged period of time, it might be better to let them to the product and hire someone else for business operations.

The bottom line: it’s still hard to make it, but confidence in techies is growing

Although there are many points indicating that tech founders are the better leaders, the boffin fallacy persists. That’s bad news for techies because it means that however qualified you are, investors, advisors, and even colleagues just might not believe in you.

As a founder, however, it’s important to have people who believe in you. Not only does this boost your own confidence — and believe me, without confidence it’ll be hard to make it anywhere. If customers don’t believe in you and your product, why should they buy your product? And if investors don’t believe in you, why should they ever hand you a check?

The status quo is that the boffin fallacy is everywhere you look. And as long as this persists, we’re pushing perfectly qualified people into R&D departments and research labs instead of letting them change the world.

There is a silver lining though: in Europe, as in parts of the Middle East and Asia, US investors are getting more and more present . This may be an indicator that confidence in tech founders is growing in Europe, the sad heart of the boffin fallacy, and other parts of the world.

It’s still hard to make it as a techie. To some degree, it will always be hard to make it anywhere. But slowly, people seem to be letting go of the boffin fallacy.

Times are changing, folks.

This article was written by Ari Joury and was originally published on Start it Up . You can read it here.

Agility of small businesses during COVID-19 puts big pressure on corporates

Like so many small businesses, a craft beer brewery close to me here in Northern California could have gone belly up when the COVID-19 crisis forced the closure of its two tap rooms and dried up demand from the bars and restaurants it sells to.

Instead, the owner swiftly altered his business model. Customers now can order and pay for their favorite ales, pilsners, or sours online and pick them up outside one of the tap rooms or request doorstep delivery. He spread the word through an email campaign and a rapid re-design of the company’s website. As a result, the owner recently told me, his sales are down only 10%, a remarkable number given the situation.

Most of us have similar stories. Amid a pandemic that has wreaked havoc on almost every industry and dealt heart-rending damage to Main Street America, businesses in our communities have shown an incredible ability to adapt and innovate.

Think, for example, of the local restaurants that, by moving their menus online and providing curbside pickup, are thrilling customers craving a small sense of normalcy along with a break from cooking.

We should celebrate these successes and those who have made them possible because they give us comfort and a sense of continuity, preserve some jobs when so many have disappeared, and, I daresay, are a testament to the human spirit to survive.

But I believe they also hold broader, essential lessons for companies of every size, not just small, local ones, and how they need to approach serving customers.

Agility wins

As people value the convenience and personalization that so many small businesses — as well as fast-on-its-feet larger ones like Amazon and Instacart — are offering during this stressful time, they will increasingly expect to feel similar emotions from all the companies they deal with, now and forever.

After seeing what these businesses have been able to pull off under the most trying circumstances, we’ll have no patience for a lousy experience with, say, a large bank.

Consumers’ expectations were strong to begin with in a digital age that has given consumers unprecedented choices and power. But the brand loyalty equation is changing in “the new normal.” Every business, regardless of size, will now be obligated to deliver a delightfully convenient, hassle-free experience that shows complete understanding of the customer’s needs and wants.

We’ve seen a similar shift before, when advances by digital leaders like Amazon pressured every consumer-facing business into raising its customer experience game. Only now it’s often smaller, traditional businesses setting the new standard. Think of it as the revenge of the little guys.

All of this means companies will need to re-examine how they approach consumers and whether their corporate cultures align with these new realities. How well organizations can adapt to this new era of adaptability, if you will, will define market winners and losers for years to come.

The need for companies to implement change faster was increasing anyway due to the rapid rate of innovation in the digital age. But COVID-19 is hastening the requirement for super-agile corporate cultures of the future. In this type of organization, good ideas are encouraged from anywhere in the organization and are nimbly put into practice.

Yet consider the manner in which so many large companies have operated until now: decisions made and stringently enforced from on high, with little input from lower-level employees on the front lines and scant opportunity for feedback and good ideas to bubble up.

Perhaps bean counters in an airline’s headquarters insist on a no-refunds policy for seat upgrades when someone cancels a flight, not knowing or caring about the dissatisfaction the rule elicits in call center interactions. Or maybe a retailer’s executives are blind to what its sales associates know — the company’s return policy is annoyingly rigid.

Empowerment done right

Most of the conversation around empowering employees post-coronavirus has been about facilitating collaboration and interaction among remote workers or making sure they have the right technology tools.

That’s important but misses a larger point: t ruly empowering employees means giving everyone a voice in doing the right thing for customers, at a time when customer needs are changing faster than most corporate structures and processes can keep up.

“This is how we do things” can never again be uttered inside a company.

I’m reminded of something I noticed at my local Starbucks just as the pandemic was hitting but before shelter-in-place orders. The store manager made a number of changes, such as having the baristas put drinks behind glass in the pickup area and moving tables around so people in line could spread out more.

I got the feeling from the manager that this was not a corporate edict — she simply thought it was smart. And she didn’t wait for approval from a higher-up in the regional office. She just acted locally.

Moving forward, every company will need to find a way to replicate the moments of empowerment and agility we’re seeing now. Business leaders will need to find new ways to truly listen to employees and get ahead of the curve in making improvements that make customers happy and eliminating things that don’t.

I hope corporations of the world are paying attention.

How giving product features away for free helped my startup grow during COVID-19

This article was originally published by Built In .

Typically, students want a good education to get a good job — yet schools sorely underdeliver. As Goldie Blumenstyk wrote in her book American Higher Education in Crisis? What Everyone Needs to Know: “ More than ever, a college education is seen less as a process and more as a product, a means to an end. And customers are not entirely convinced that what they are buying is worth the price. ”

In 2018, the cost of going to college in the United States was $30,000 per student, each year, according to the Atlantic . That cost, though, “has virtually no relationship to the value that students could possibly get in exchange,” Andreas Schleicher, director for education and skills at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) , told the Atlantic.

Meanwhile, according to the Pew Research Center, the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds in May was 28.5%.

Before COVID-19 hit, my company had already been helping to get students hired via our partnerships with universities to provide an interview prep community. Our communities include courses, coaching, and online forums to help make the interview process less lonely, and more supportive. We realized that the key to success in an interview relied not necessarily on just knowing the right information, but proper and effective practice with peers.

As a student-founder, I’ve always had a soft spot for helping other students find their careers. But with the pandemic, that desire to help became an even more obvious need. With the disruption to the on-site college experience, it’s become more challenging for many students to see the path forward to employment.

Our team could easily have decided to ramp up marketing for students, kept our prices constant, and brought a ton of students onto the platform. It would have made us more money, and potentially kept the perceived value of our site high.

But instead, I distinctly remember having a conversation with my co-founder in an eerily empty WeWork the day before San Francisco shut down. As we discussed our options, a crazy idea suddenly came up: What if we made features free for students?

We balked initially. As a bootstrapped startup, we’ve always strongly valued the idea of growing a sustainable business. But, as a recent student myself, I knew the demand for career prep resources had skyrocketed (we had already seen a 50% growth in our user base in just a few months after COVID-19), and there simply was a dearth of opportunities to help educate students on basic questions like “How do I get an interview?” or “What types of interview questions do they ask?”

We’re not alone. Many founders are in the same shoes, unsure how to navigate the pandemic, and whether or not to open up their products or to double down on their business models. We’d recommend the former: Finding ways during the pandemic to meet your users where they are, and support them through these murky waters.

Based on how we approached launching one of our products for free to students, here are some elements to consider for others thinking of doing the same.

First, we looked at our company’s mission and values. Why are we in this business? What are our goals? Our goal is not to maximize our wealth, but to create a sustainable, excellent product that our customers and users love. After thinking through this and realizing the potential impact on student populations, we knew we wanted to find a way to make our product more accessible to students.

When starting a company or planning a new business move, take the time to think carefully about your mission, and why you’re in the business. All other decisions will follow.

We thought about how opening up our interview question database , one of our highest-value products, would play into our overall value ladder. Could we still help our business grow financially while making this particular tool-free and accessible to all?

As we launched our free product, we also thought carefully about how to still maintain that value ladder. We want to provide the right educational products at the right level for our users. For instance, many users learn about us through our YouTube Channel, then sign up for our site, then buy our membership, and then perhaps decide to buy one-to-one coaching. If users or customers don’t see added value in the next step, they don’t need to purchase.

Giving things away for free is nice, but also consider how it affects your business. Give products or services in a way that users can still follow a path to becoming an avid customer that recommends your products to others. This is a true win-win for consumers and your business.

Ultimately, offering our database of interview questions for free was a gamble. We had no idea how this would impact our business. But, we also knew this decision was easy to reverse. If needed, we could undo the changes, and put a paywall on our content again. The reversibility of the decision made it easier to test out as an experiment.

Think carefully about whether or not decisions are reversible, and, especially at startups, lean into reversible decisions. This is the best way to learn and grow as a company, and as a leader.

Our team debated whether or not we should limit access based on having adu” email address. However, building the feature to limit access would have required weeks of engineering work, and, given our resources, it wasn’t a high-priority item. So instead, we decided to launch the database free to anyone, and specifically focused on marketing it to students.

Try to find the path of least resistance to launch your experience. Don’t worry too much about feature-gating or paywalling certain parts — after all, if you need to do take those steps, it likely means it’s going pretty successfully.

Lastly, we reached out and connected with our users to see if this was helpful. By forming relationships with new student users, we were invited to virtual talks with various student organizations, reaching more than 2,000 students in the past couple of months. That alone has been an incredible opportunity to provide support to students, and increase awareness about our brand.

Was this decision worth it for our business? We’ve seen a huge growth in the past few months, received a positive reception, and high engagement across all our features. Specifically, we noticed incredible user growth across our profiles, doubling, and then tripling engagement on certain features. And our revenue? It followed a similar trend.

One of the most paradoxical things in business is that giving away more free materials can often build a user base that trusts you, and wants to pay for more of your products.

Beyond just revenue and metrics, I’d also encourage founders to think long term. Perhaps there’s a loss of revenue from students that no longer pay for our site, but we’re investing in students. And we want to develop a relationship with them so that they can come back throughout their career journey, and so that we can continue to provide support along the way.

Lastly, I’d say that, as a founder, it’s incredibly important to have a values-based approach. Finding a focus that is as important to you as helping students is to me, and then leaning in with values won’t go wrong, and your customers will notice.

So you’re interested in entrepreneurship? Then join our online event, TNW2020 , where you’ll hear how the most successful founders kickstarted and grew their companies.