CTOs often come from engineering backgrounds and, particularly when newly promoted, tend to focus on what they know best, the technology. While this is understandable given their previous success, technology is rarely the hardest part of the CTO role.
Early-stage startups want full-stack unicorns who can do it all on a tight budget, but asking one dev to wear every hat is less strategic hiring and more duct-taping a rocket and hoping for the best.
Go for one codebase or multiple repositories? A question multiple CTOs and technical founders have asked. It can be a surprisingly expensive decision nobody warns you about.
Vibe coding or AI-assisted development? The choice isn't binary, but getting it wrong at the wrong stage will cost you. This piece breaks down when to embrace speed over architecture, when to take back control, and why the best teams don't pick sides.
Micromanagement rarely starts with bad intent. It usually starts with silence. When nobody knows what you are working on, meetings multiply, trust erodes, and focus disappears. This piece shows how clear, boring communication is your best defence.
What can investors do about legacy code to prevent your startup from failure? What is the difference between legacy and technical debt?
Tired of git blame pointing to useless formatting commits? Learn how to ignore revisions with --ignore-rev or .git-blame-ignore-revs to keep Git history accurate and helpful.
Cursor’s new background agents feature lets Pro users spin up cloud-based environments that clone your repo, complete small tasks in parallel, and create PRs without touching your local setup.
Startups without a technical co-founder can still build great products, but only if they avoid the usual traps of overengineering, needless infrastructure, and late developer involvement.