Why You Shouldn't Have a CPTO
Some companies have one person leading product (CPO) and another leading tech (CTO). Other companies combine them into a CPTO. I think the latter doesn’t work, for multiple reasons:
Skill: Tech and product are very different skills, and it’s hard for one person to have the skill needed to lead both product and tech. Heck, it’s hard to even have the skill needed to lead one of them. Without this skill, a manager doesn’t win the respect of his people, and is more like a dummy, while the real brains are somewhere else. And it’s hard for a CPTO to be the brains behind both the product and technical strategy and key decisions.
Time: Given that both the CTO and CPO are full-time jobs, there aren’t enough hours in a day to do both. A person who tries to do both ends up being bad at both, neglecting one or both areas.
Focus: Product and tech require different mindsets, different ways of thinking. You can’t be in both mindets at once, any more than a car can be in two gears at once. You need deep work, thinking from first principles, thinking top-down, thinking about the big picture, and not being carried away by events happening this week. You need at least a day a month to think. All this requires focus, but trying to do two jobs takes away that focus.
Bouncing ideas: I do my best work when I have someone to bounce ideas off and brainstorm and build on each other’s ideas. It’s hard for me to think of everything by myself, in my mind. Also some things need to be looked at from two points of view, to appreciate both aspects of the decision and thus make a better decision. This doesn’t happen if one person is playing both roles.
In summary, a CPTO is just someone who’s neither a great CPO nor a great CTO [1]. Hire a separate CTO and CPO. And in your career, pick one role and invest in it.
[1] It’s fine for a CTO to temporarily work as a CPO, or vice-versa, as long as it’s instead of one’s primary role, not in addition to. So, if you’re CTO and you need to work as a CPO temporarily, be clear with the CEO and other stakeholders that as long as you’re a CPO, you’re not a CTO, so you can’t be held accountable if anything goes wrong on the technical side, like outages, data leaks, bad architectural decisions, etc.