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The billionaire CEO, Jeff Bezos, sent a memo in 2002 to all of Amazon telling them how they were going to architect AWS. His vision was Abstract Programming Interfaces - or APIs as engineers call them. Anybody who did not obey would be cheerfully fired. This brilliant idea would lead Amazon to dominate the cloud space.

As the joke goes, the CEO should spend 80% of time pleasing shareholders and the other 30% checking the numbers are correct. So, how could Bezos have such technical insight?

The reason is that American tech CEOs understand technology. It’s not something they view with barely disguised contempt. Bezos, after all, has a degree in electrical engineering.

The British approach to technology reflects historical attitudes that emerged in late Victorian times. The wealthy heirs of early industrialists began to view direct involvement in factory operations as “unbecoming of gentlemen”. Consequently, German and American GDP per capita overtook Britain in a period called the “decline of the industrial spirit.”

This history appears to influence some aspects of British management culture today. A South African colleague observed that British managers often tackle a problem by throwing more people at it - an approach that worked well during the Industrial Revolution when output depended on the number of poorly paid workers a factory had.

In today’s knowledge economy, the most effective approach often involves the opposite strategy. Leading technology companies like Google have demonstrated success through small, focused teams of specialized engineers who command premium compensation for their expertise.

We may have lost half our audience by mentioning APIs in our first paragraph. But for those interested in learning more about effective technology management, we’d be happy to discuss how these principles might apply to you.