93. Lessons from the Netflix C Suite

Tech for Non-Techies

How do you get to the top of a tech company as a non-technical professional? How can you drive innovation, when you’re not building the technology yourself?

That’s what you’ll learn from this interview with David Wells, ex CFO of Netflix and chair of the board at Wise.

Learning notes from this episode:

• “It’s called tech, or working in tech, but the entire economy is going to be this. So calling it tech is a little bit apocryphal at this stage,” David says.
• “Tech jargon distances people from the actual understanding of the concepts.” Learning core technology concepts is not as hard as the jargon has many believe.
• Learning what data scientists do and how to work with them is the best skill set to develop for business people in tech. “Data science is the analysis of the lifeblood of the company and you have to ask fundamental insight questions against it. You do not have to build the models yourself, but you are at an advantage if you understand how they work.”
• For a company that wants to innovate, there is no choice but to invest in risky projects that may not pay off. ”You have to be disciplined about spending x% on the next income generating thing.”
• “A company doesn’t suddenly go from loss making to profit making elegantly.” Growth company CFOs provide key metrics and steps to make that journey is as smooth as possible.

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There are 2 ways to apply this work to your unique challenges:

For companies:

• If your company is going through digital transformation and you want your non-techie teams to be active participants

Then get in touch with us about bespoke training & consulting on [email protected]

For individuals, if you want to:

• Build tech a venture as a non-technical innovator
• Succeed in tech as a non-techie

Then Tech For Non-Techies membership is for you.

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