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As controversial as his points are, I feel like Michael O. Church really nails this hypothesis. Startup CEOs are not CEOs in any meaningful sense. Startup CEOs
by quanticle 11y ago
As controversial as his points are, I feel like Michael O. Church really nails this hypothesis. Startup CEOs are not CEOs in any meaningful sense. Startup CEOs are our equivalent of what division vice-presidents were in the '50s and '60s. They're executives with a certain level of autonomy, to be sure, but they're hardly the independent mavericks that the rhetoric around startups would have you believe. Just like VPs in the old corporate conglomerates were ultimately answerable to the CEO, now our startup "CEOs" are answerable to the VC-appointed boards of directors.
In fact, if you squint your eyes a little, a modern Silicon Valley VC firm looks an awful lot like a corporate conglomerate from the '60s (e.g. 3M).
- smt88 11y agoI find this analysis pretty baffling and wildly differing from my own experience. In my experience, startup CEOs are exactly what CEOs usually are -- not totally independent, but beholden to investors/shareholders who want to see their money grow. I've never heard of a company so tightly managed by its VCs that you could liken them to upper management. Sure, they might make some final decisions, but most VCs just don't have time to scrutinize their portfolio companies that closely.