Hacker News Reader

> Plus, it's high visibility when you succeed.

Actually, no. That is one of the biggest problems with properly functioning IT systems, they become invisible - nobody notices until something screws up...

View on HN

I think that's true at smaller organizations where the head of IT isn't on the exec team. But at large companies, the head of IT is a pretty serious role (Jacob was CIO/EVP), with a very large budget, mission-critical systems, and a big team. Someone who successfully runs IT at a company like Target can pretty much get hired into a similar role at any other Fortune 500 company.

In general, yes, but after a company has gotten fucked as much as Target, it's pretty easy to turn this into a high-profile "we must bring the US payment card industry into the 1980s!" position.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com