A CTO explains their hands-on approach to coding despite their leadership position, detailing three categories of work they tackle: experimental projects with long horizons, urgent customer requests, and bug fixes. They argue that staying in the code provides crucial insights for strategic decisions, maintains technical intuition, and leverages their strengths better than traditional management duties. Modern AI tools have amplified their productivity 2-3x, making it feasible to balance coding with strategic responsibilities. The key message is that technical leadership roles are flexible and should align with individual strengths rather than following conventional wisdom about abandoning code.
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