Will Larson
CTO at Carta
Will Larson is CTO at Carta, former engineering leader at Stripe, Uber, and Calm, and author of An Elegant Puzzle, Staff Engineer, and The Engineering Executive's Primer — essential reading for all engineers.
Dimension Profile
Key Themes
Episode Summary
Will Larson, one of the most requested podcast guests, argues that the tech industry needs to stop treating engineers like children who need to be sheltered from real business problems. Drawing on experience at Carta, Stripe, Uber, and as author of three essential engineering books, he explains how putting engineers in senior leadership roles and exposing them to real problems is how they and the company grow.
Leadership Principles
- → We often treat engineers like children instead of giving them responsibilities to thrive as adults
- → It's not good for engineers to be sheltered from what's important — they need to see the real problems
- → Engineers should be put into senior leadership roles without the assumption that we need to coddle them
Notable Quotes
"We often treat engineers like children instead of giving them the responsibilities to thrive as adults. 'The engineers won't want to do that work' — it's not good to shelter them from what's important."
— On the biggest cultural shift needed in how companies treat engineering talent
"We're coming to this moment where we can treat engineers like our peers and put them into really senior leadership roles without assuming we have to coddle them."
— On the evolution of the engineering leadership role
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