> “The CTO must protect the technology team from becoming a pure execution arm for ideas without tending to its own needs and its own ideas.”
As a CTO myself, I strongly disagree with this. Yes, a dev team needs to tend to it's own ideas, but no, it shouldn't be making product decisions. You should have product and design teams that tease out user problems and come up with solutions. In that sense, the dev team does simply implement the ideas of the company. They still make technical decisions of course, but not product or UX decisions.
As a CTO myself, I strongly disagree with this. Yes, a dev team needs to tend to it's own ideas, but no, it shouldn't be making product decisions. You should have product and design teams that tease out user problems and come up with solutions. In that sense, the dev team does simply implement the ideas of the company. They still make technical decisions of course, but not product or UX decisions.