Myhrvold on the CTO

[This comment is a little dated ... but still relevant in many organizations.]

"When asked what a CTO is, Nathan Myhrvold, the former CTO of Microsoft and head of its massive research organization, replied, 'Hell if I know. You know, when Bill [Gates] and I were discussing my taking this job, at one point he said, Okay, what are the great examples of successful CTO's. After about five minutes we decided that, well, there must be some, but we didn't have on the tip of our tongues exactly who was a great CTO, because many of the people who actually were great CTO's didn't have that title, and at least some of the people who have that title arguably aren't great at it. My job at Microsoft is to worry about technology in the future. If you want to have a great future you have to start thinking about it in the present, because when the future's here you won't have the time.'"

[Extracted from: http://www.edge.org/digerati/myhrvold/myhrvold_p2.html]