A founder friend of mine who runs a pretty well-established enterprise SaaS company was recently looking for a CTO/CPTO and asked me: What would you look for in a CTO/CPTO?

Without batting an eyelid, my response was: Vision.

Will someone who is technically very sound, a strong architect, 10x developer make a good CTO too? Probably, but not definitely. Unless a CTO/CPTO has an “inventive” vision of seeing products quarters down the line, s/he is almost no good for this job even with all the tech chops.

As a CEO, you will find yourself stuck in time loops. Wrong strategic decisions will cost you dearly; in terms of your ability to go to market or in monetary terms. You will find yourself always reacting to the market, not creating or leading it.

Obviously, there are lot of other attributes that are a must, but setting the right direction is almost always the first step in this journey. And with Generative AI now in the mix, this is what will separate the wheat from the chaff!