The Engineer CEO

I recently came across this tweet from Marko Jukic at Bismarck Analysis:

It's unbelievable how many dynamic companies broke their streaks of engineer-CEOs for the first time in the 2000s, installing their first MBA/finance CEOs, who then promptly made fundamental strategic errors that nixed the company's future, that are now becoming obvious.

Is it true? Did companies like Intel, Boeing, IBM, and Sony lose their way by hiring CEOs who were more focused on finances than on the product itself?
 
While you may not 100% cosign Jukic’s analysis, I do think there is a core truth here: to be successful as a CEO, you must have a baseline knowledge of—and some degree of genuine interest in—your company’s product.
 
The classic engineer-turned-CEO has this implicitly, in a way a “money guy” (or gal) CEO hired to run the business might not. If the finance/MBA-type CEO hasn’t internalized how the product is made and sold, and isn’t curious about it, that disconnect eventually shows up in the bottom lin…