Tech organizations with more than 100 employees have a unique set of challenges. When you’re in the business of innovation, it can be hard to say no to exciting new opportunities. In this week’s episode of CTO Connection, David Schwartz, CTO of Ripple stopped by to discuss why companies need to stick to their core competencies.

Tune in as Peter and David talk about the challenges of blockchain, managing the expectations of so many different stakeholders, and why hiring people who are strong in areas where the company has been weak has paid off for Ripple. Listen in!

• [00:20] - How David became a CTO
• [02:14] - Changing international payments 
• [02:47] - Banking integration
• [03:57] - Scaling the organization
• [05:54] - Roles and responsibilities at Ripple 
• [11:46] - Integration engineering vs. product
• [17:20] - Hiring for the integration engineering world
• [18:34] - Surprises and challenges in a CTO role
• [21:02] - Balancing management
• [24:04] - Attracting and retaining talent

CTO Connection is where you can learn from the experiences of successful engineering leaders at fast-growth tech startups. Whether you want to learn more about hiring, motivating or managing an engineering team, if you're technical and manage engineers, the CTO Connection podcast is a great resource for learning from your peers!

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This podcast episode was produced by Dante32.