🤔 What is the ONE thing common between Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bernard Arnault, Larry Page, and Mukhesh Ambani? They are all engineers and they are the CEOs of the world's biggest companies, with net worths of over 90B $. Okay, that’s 3 things, but let me tell you this is not a coincidence. 5 out of the top ten world’s richest people studied engineering and computer science. Why?

Did you see this tweet from Elon Musk a couple of days ago where he said:

“I strongly believe that all managers in a technical area must be technically excellent. Managers in software must write great software or it’s like being a cavalry captain who can’t ride a horse!”

So he basically compared all those MBA folks to cavalry captains who can’t ride a horse!

🏆 But it’s not just tech that engineers are absolutely dominating.

Do you know this man?

🤑 He is the third richest man in the world. Yup, after Musk and Bezos, this is the man with a $158 B networth in 2022 according to Forbes so his wealth surpasses both bill gates and warren buffet. And he is one of the two people on the world's top 10 rich people list who did not make his money off of a tech conglomerate. It’s just him and warren buffet.

🇫🇷 His name is Bernard Arnault, he is a French gentleman, so he made his money the way every rich French person does. By making luxury goods. You may not have heard of him but you’ve definitely heard of Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, Dior, and Sephora. And guess what, he owns all of them AND more. Here’s another thing you probably didn’t know about him, he studied engineering at Ecole Polytechnique in Paris.

🙋‍♀️ So what makes engineers so successful as billionaire CEOs even when they are not really working directly in tech. Well it boils down to three things

💡 Problem Solving

What consists of two words and is synonymous with engineering? You guessed it, it's “problem-solving”. When companies are managed by problem solvers, they prosper because every challenge becomes an opportunity for solving another problem, and guess who is good at solving problems?

👩‍🔬 Innovative Thinking

Microsoft was getting destroyed by Apple under the leadership of Steve Ballmer. Things only started changing for Microsoft when their engineer Satya Nadella made his way up the ladder and took over as CEO in 2014. He completely changed the way Microsoft was dealing with Apple. Before him, Microsoft made windows phone in response to iPhone, and Surface in response to the iPad, and we all know how successful windows phones were. Satya changed that. Instead of trying to compete with Apple in phones and tablets, he changed the game by playing to Microsoft’s strengths rather than trying to make Microsoft a cheap replica of Apple.

What is the one thing where Microsoft is undeniably better than everybody else? If you guessed Office Suit, you’re right. Satya opened Office apps to Apple users and it was a great success. He also focused on Azure which is by far the biggest competition for Amazon Web Services (AWS). He turned Microsoft’s future (and revenue) around.

🏋️‍♀️ Perseverance

Engineers are no strangers to debugging so when things don’t go as planned, they debug the sh*t out of them and keep making adjustments until they work. This is a great business strategy. When something doesn’t work, figure out why it doesn’t, and then make it work. This type of attitude can make engineers sometimes very stubborn. They pay attention to detail, and their little nuances can annoy everybody around them, but they sure know how to make things work. Imagine people working with Elon Musk.

Musk is famous for getting his hands dirty and getting down to the technical nitty-gritty of things. He coded OpenAI’s GPT-2 libraries himself, so he’s got bragging rights for poking fun at MBA folks who can’t code. He famously believes that people with management degrees spend too much time in meetings and not enough on actually getting things done. And that makes him a very successful CEO.

That's all from my side folks, hope you enjoyed reading it. And oh I might have lied about Musk. He doesn’t have a degree in engineering so he is technically not an engineer. But you know my views on degrees anyway, so we’ll call him a self-taught engineer.

Have a great week!

Sadia

❤My Favourite Things

📕Book:

I just bought “Building a Second Brain” by Tiago Forte. I think I’m gonna find it very useful since I’m already a fan of Tiago and his Second Brain philosophy.

📝Quote:

You have to be curious about the world in which you live. Look things up. Chase down every reference. Go deeper than anybody else—that’s how you’ll get ahead. Steal Like an Artist - Austin Kleon

🔍I’m Learning:

I’m learning touch typing, and I created this Free Notion Template for you to download if you want to track your own typing speed progress over time.

I see that you’ve made it to the end. If you liked this blog post, check out the other stuff I talk about on my YouTube Channel. Don’t forget to subscribe!😉

Sadia Khaf

A channel about higher education abroad, scholarships, and career advice. 

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