Short transcript of a YouTube conversation (Dennis H. Lewis and an interviewer) about hiring technical talent—particularly hiring a Chief Technical Officer or technical partner for small businesses. Main claims: high-quality technical talent is expensive and AI tools don't make top talent cheaper; hiring vs. partnering matters because a true CTO should understand and care about the business, not just deliver code.
Chapters
What about hiring? What happens during the process of hiring someone as a chief technical officer, if you will. It could be someone that's just really good at what they do in terms of how you might hire a bubble expert, or you might hire someone that's really good with PHP or CSS or whatever. What traits should you look for when you're thinking about hiring someone?
So let's think about this. Awesome talent is expensive. Yes, it just is. I mean, and it's not going to get cheaper just because there's more AI tools out there or what have you. If you want somebody that really carries their weight, it's going to be expensive. And you shouldn't cut corners in the sense that you might say, well, I think I'll hire this other guy because he's cheaper. Okay, you're going to get what you pay for. Just know that. Okay, if you want to go on upwork and hire, you know, a developer in, I don't know, in Pakistan or India or. And some of them are really awesome, some of them aren't, just know that they're going to come. Those lower price tags are going to come with lower capabilities of understanding, communication. Communication. Understanding the intricacies of the business. Okay, they may be awesome developers, but if you're looking for a cto, you're looking for a partner, you're looking for somebody to go the journey with you. It's just as important that they understand and care about the business as you understand the tech. Because if that's not reciprocal, it's a disaster waiting to happen because you may end up with a marvelous piece of code that just doesn't do what you need it to do.
Is it hard to find an employee? Because at that point, when you're hiring a chief technical officer, you are hiring an employee that works for you. At the end of the day, is it hard to, especially with small businesses like, I'm thinking like a bubble startup, is it hard to. To find someone that you can fully trust that they're going to care about what it is that you're building and not just build or, you know, hand over something to you that they don't. You know, it does something, but it doesn't really. Perhaps it's not been built to be a meaningful solution like the one that you were envisioning.
I think that's the difference between hiring and partnering, maybe. Yeah, or, or just, you know, going after a freelancer or having a, an actual.
