CTO Write - UP:

CTO- Bulls Eyes & Bloopers

ABSTRACT: This research examines five success stories and five failure stories of some
renowned CTOs around the world

SFRLO-B
Ansal VM
PGP/25/135

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Contents
CTO – Chief Technology officer .............................................................................................................. 3
Success stories ........................................................................................................................................ 3
1. Airbnb, Aristotle Balogh .............................................................................................................. 3
2. Verizon Media's Rathi Murthy .................................................................................................... 3
3. Mike Schroepfer, Facebook ........................................................................................................ 4
4. Parag Agrawal, Twitter................................................................................................................ 4
5. Bharat Mediratta, Dropbox ......................................................................................................... 4
Failure stories ......................................................................................................................................... 5
1. Sandeep Srinath,Peppertap ........................................................................................................ 5
2. Tom Chernetsky , Yik Yak ............................................................................................................ 5
3. Dough Field, Segway ................................................................................................................... 5
4. Aber Whitecomb, MySpace ........................................................................................................ 6
5. Astin Klahn, MapQuest ............................................................................................................... 6
References .............................................................................................................................................. 6

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CTO – Chief Technology officer

The executive in charge of an organization's technological demands as well as research and

development is known as the chief technology officer (CTO) (R&D). This individual, sometimes known
as a chief technical officer, assesses a company's short- and long-term needs and uses cash to make
investments that will assist the firm achieve its goals. The CTO often reports to a company's chief
information officer (CIO), but may also report to the firm's chief executive officer (CEO).

A chief technology officer (CTO) is a company's highest-ranking technology executive who oversees
the technology or engineering department. They create rules and procedures, as well as apply
technology, to improve products and services aimed at external customers. The CTO also creates
revenue-boosting initiatives and does cost-benefit and return-on-investment analyses.

Previously, a chief information officer (CIO) held dual positions as CIO and chief technology officer
(CTO). However, as technology advanced, there was a rising necessity to divide the CIO job into two
responsibilities in order to assure a company's success. As a result, the CTO post was created as a
separate position.

What is the difference between the two? Despite the names, the CTO has a more outward-looking,
strategic planning role, whilst the CIO is more focused on technology and operations. A CIO is typically
in charge of the technologies that power the company's internal operations and business activities.
The CTO is in charge of technologies that help the company develop outside by deploying services and
solutions that benefit clients and customers.

Success stories

1. Airbnb, Aristotle Balogh

Aristotle (Ari) Balogh has been the CTO of Airbnb since 2018 and is leading the firm as it
prepares to go public. Balogh supervises the development and engineering of Airbnb's
infrastructure, IT, Information Security Teams, payments, Trust, and Community Support
teams in his capacity as CTO. He formerly worked as Google's VP of Engineering and as the
CTO of Yahoo!, which is currently owned by Verizon Media.
Balogh's work is essential to Airbnb's objective of reimagining how people travel. He has
advocated for the creation of an AI-powered, customer-first experience that emphasises
seamless design, fosters relationships within communities, and continues to set the industry
standard. This technology can be utilised to provide an immersive and personalised search
experience that takes into account all aspects of a planned schedule.

2. Verizon Media's Rathi Murthy

Rathi Murthy, the CTO of Verizon Media, is the driving force behind the company's worldwide
media strategy, supervising media companies such as Yahoo!, TechCrunch, and HuffPost.

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 Murthy is also in charge of managing the company's efforts to develop creative media
applications for upcoming technologies such as augmented reality, artificial intelligence,
machine learning, and 5G.Prior to joining Verizon, Murthy had top positions at Gap, American
Express, Yahoo!, and eBay, where she was instrumental in the development of a number of
consumer-friendly technology interfaces.

Murthy is highly regarded as an encouraging female voice in a profession that has traditionally
been dominated by men. She is an advocate for women in technology and frequently speaks
about her career journey at women's conferences.

3. Mike Schroepfer, Facebook

Mike Schroepfer has been Facebook's technical director since 2013. He is an AI expert who
is well-suited to oversee the creation of AI systems to detect hate speech and fraudulent
content on the social media platform. Schroepfer has been building the Adapted Machine
Learning team since 2013, which has applied Facebook's AI technology to new issues such
as facial recognition, augmented reality, and language translation.

Schroepfer began his career in film effects and eventually worked in computer data centers,
starting a firm that was ultimately purchased by Sun Microsystems. He formerly served as
Mozilla's VP of Engineering during the company's battle for market supremacy with Internet
Explorer. He presently serves on the boards of Ancestry.com and the Anita Borg Institute
for Women and Technology, among others.

4. Parag Agrawal, Twitter

In 2011, Parag Agrawal joined Twitter as a software engineer focused on increasing Twitter
advertisements, and six years later he was promoted to oversee the company's engineering
team. Agrawal has used his skills in AI to scale machine learning at Twitter to assist combat
harassment on the social media network.

Given the breadth and accessibility of Twitter, Agrawal is frequently at the forefront of
influencing change in a hugely impactful technology. He is currently leading Twitter's Blue-
Sky initiative to decentralize social media by embracing new technologies such as
blockchain. As Twitter's technology fundamentals alter, he will be a tech executive to watch
now and in the future.

5. Bharat Mediratta, Dropbox

Dropbox's CTO Bharat Mediratta's decisions have a huge impact on its clients as well as the
cloud collaboration industry as a whole. Mediratta joined Dropbox in 2019 and has
overseen significant expansions to the company's technical infrastructure, ITS, security, and
intelligence teams. He is still the driving force behind famous Dropbox products like

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 Ecosystem, Dropbox Paper, and HelloSign, which have digitized how teams collaborate and
plan, as well as how individuals sign paper documents.

Mediratta is also the co-founder and former CTO of AltSchool, now known as Altitude
Learning, where he took on the objective of providing a learner-centric educational
approach to students through digital platforms.

Failure stories
1. Sandeep Srinath,Peppertap

Peppertap, situated in Gurgaon, was founded in 2014 with the goal of "revolutionising
grocery shopping" as an Indian supermarket delivery service with low fees. The inventory-
free model was used by the mobile-first corporation. They collaborated with local grocery
stores, making geographic growth particularly simple.

However, there were a few issues with Peppertap's mobile first approach, according to a
blog post describing its accomplishments and failings. First, the mobile app and partner
store integration was not flawless, resulting in "far too many stores online far too rapidly."

Peppertap built a big and devoted customer base through a discount model. Peppertap
explained their losses by claiming that their ultimate goal was tremendous client loyalty and
acquisition. Unfortunately, Peppertap was losing money on every order and was about to
run out of money.Finally, Peppertap decided that "sooner (read: while retaining a major
portion of the funds we had raised) was preferable than later."

2. Tom Chernetsky , Yik Yak

Yik Yak, an anonymous communication software founded in 2013, grabbed college by

storm. Yik Yak, which was valued at $400 million at its peak, was unable to stay up with
pupils as Snapchat took off.

Yik Yak has been banned from various campuses, including College of Idaho, due to
cyberbullying, threats, and nasty content. Yik Yak was unable to sustain its buzzworthy
quality due to its inability to convert to group texting. Finally, app downloads fell 76% from
2015 to the end of 2016.Yik Yak closed in April of 2017.

3. Dough Field, Segway

The Segway was a personal motorised scooter designed and introduced to the market in
2001 as a revolutionary mode of mobility.

How they failed to innovate: Despite the fact that the product was innovative, they failed
to distinguish between pragmatism and blue sky thinking. Because city infrastructure and

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 safety were not addressed before going to market, many critics questioned why anyone
would invest in something so expensive that you couldn't use.

4. Aber Whitecomb, MySpace

MySpace was the dominant social networking site until Facebook arrived on the scene.

How they failed to innovate: As Facebook grew in popularity, MySpace saw a fall in its user
base and opted to redefine its focus. The platform's flexibility and freedom of expression
were once its major differentiators and had become the most common cause for users
quitting.

5. Astin Klahn, MapQuest

Before satellite navigation systems, Google Maps, and Apple Maps took over, consumers
relied on MapQuest for driving instructions.

How they failed to innovate: Mapquest got off track somewhere along the road. Regarding
their core objective, which was to provide simple, informative directions. When comparing
Google Maps with Mapquest right now, the Mapquest UI is a shambles.

References

1. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/chief-technology-officer.asp
2. https://theorg.com/insights/the-top-10-most-powerful-ctos-in-tech
3. https://about.crunchbase.com/blog/failed-startups-and-lessons-learned

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