I’m not sure how a bet could be formulated, and it’s possible that the process of formulating it would show we aren’t in disagreement.
However, I wonder if you are looking at the successful outcomes without considering the unsuccessful outcomes?
A great engineering manager is likely great at engineering. However a great engineer is unlikely to be a great engineering manager—dealing with code all day is different to dealing with people all day. Of course, some can do both (and here you see a great engineering manager who is also a great engineer). My contention is that a minority of engineers (main focus is code) are suited to be engineering managers (main focus is people).
This is essentially the Peter principle. Peter is great at something, and keeps getting promoted until he reaches the level of mediocrity, where he stops getting promoted. Peter is clearly great at position n-1, but not great at position n.
The opposite is true in most situations, for example a great salespeople will often make a bad sales manager. This is Very Common. Eg https://www.library.hbs.edu/working-knowledge/micromanagers-in-the-making-why-salespeople-struggle-to-lead.
Doing the task and managing the people doing the task are separate skills, and the existence of one doesn’t imply the existence of the other.
I will take bets at high odds that there is a huge enormous correlation here. It also doesn’t align with advice from the sources I trust here.
I’m not sure how a bet could be formulated, and it’s possible that the process of formulating it would show we aren’t in disagreement.
However, I wonder if you are looking at the successful outcomes without considering the unsuccessful outcomes?
A great engineering manager is likely great at engineering. However a great engineer is unlikely to be a great engineering manager—dealing with code all day is different to dealing with people all day. Of course, some can do both (and here you see a great engineering manager who is also a great engineer). My contention is that a minority of engineers (main focus is code) are suited to be engineering managers (main focus is people).
This is essentially the Peter principle. Peter is great at something, and keeps getting promoted until he reaches the level of mediocrity, where he stops getting promoted. Peter is clearly great at position n-1, but not great at position n.