Arnie Goldberg, former engineering leader at Box, explains how Box structured its Customer Advisory Board compared to its Technical Advisory Board.
Insight
Goldberg: Technical advisory boards provide unvested outside perspectives on engineering choices
“I needed smart people from the outside that didn't have a lot of vested interest in the solution or weren't going to be there necessarily to deal with the consequences, to just bring some informed opinions from their experience into some tough technical choice…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Goldberg: Box resolved a six-month engineering debate with one advisory meeting
“Six months went by, and this debate raged within our engineering team, and even as we hired, you know, more senior people to come in, and the debate wouldn't go away. All it took was one formal conversation with, you know, some of the, as I created this archit…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Goldberg joined Box because its co-founding CTO stopped wanting to manage
“While in my role as VP of engineering for Box trying to scale the company, I had a co-founding CTO that didn't want to manage anymore. That's basically how I got into Box at the very beginning.”
Insight
Goldberg: Technical advisory boards should debate decisions, not grant approvals
“It's not to present something and get approval, but it's to debate a point and to debate something that, that is worthwhile enough to, you know, get all these people, high power people from, you know, across the Valley or whatever, into a room together and mak…”
Insight
Goldberg: Disband technical advisory boards when actionable problems are lacking
“It's okay to disband these things if they become, it's actually, if people appreciate it, even though the, you know, the people in a room have fun hanging out with each other If there's not real actionable things that have to come out of it, you're wasting eve…”
What-if
Goldberg: Box failed to cycle off unproductive advisors due to missing clauses
“And so, you know, what happens if you have vocal advisors, and so this is also where it goes back to the point about refreshing the board every couple of years, because I got advisors on that seemed great on paper, but didn't contribute and so I would have lov…”