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Fair point but Atul strikes to me as a problem solver kind of person. He has obviously got the intellect and precedent in that area. What I also think is this i

Fair point but Atul strikes to me as a problem solver kind of person. He has obviously got the intellect and precedent in that area. What I also think is this is _the_ job that will benefit greatly from a guy who has a fresh outlook not sullied by existing ways of doing things. As another person said below, they could easily hire a COO to deal with existing aspects of the system and still have the overall direction in the hands of someone like Atul.

entee 8y ago
That certainly makes some sense, but in that case maybe someone who has run a big organization, or built a product would be helpful. I look around and see very few successful startups that were successful on the vision of the CEO alone. So much of success comes from being able to break down walls and get things to work together that didn’t before. Maybe he can do it, but that’s really hard to do. I’d prefer betting on someone who has demonstrated that ability. Put another way it’s like giving $100M seed round to a visionary but completely unproven founder when the company is not even at garage stage. Might work out, but seems quite a bit more likely to fail than $100M given to someone who had done something like it before.
- blinkingled 8y ago
  That's the traditional way of thinking and it might work well for traditional companies - but something as disruptive as this - I would vote for the visionary/thinker any day over the dyed in the wool, set in his ways guy. Jobs/Sculley and later Tim Cook situation comes to mind - Sculley had the whole CEO experience but look how that turned out and look at how Tim Cook took over operations part which Jobs had no interest or knowledge of and made it work so well. If they had Tim Cook as the CEO pre-iphone days - I am not sure if we would have seen the iPhone.
  - tbg7504 8y ago
    Great comparison, but other than articles what kind of products or scalable accomplishments has Atul Gawande achieved in healthcare that is comparable to the impact of the iPhone?
    - blinkingled 8y ago
      This is getting tiring but the point is Atul can be the idea guy, the overall philosophy guy and they can hire other people who have product or scalable accomplishments to execute on the ideas. I think you're not giving Atul enough credit for what he brings to the being the idea guy and having first hand knowledge of what those ideas are about, being able to articulate those etc. He was also a WHO director who ran a successful project reducing surgical deaths around the world - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande
- alfredallan1 8y ago
  That, precisely, should be the COO’s job description. Like, almost literally. Consider the alternative: the CEO is a professional “manager” who can run the shop, but may (or more likely, may not) understand what the shop is all about. Then who drives vision and strategy? Someone lower in the hierarchy can’t get himself taken seriously enough (sorry, but that’s just the nature of hierarchies). He (Atul) could be made the exec president or something of that sort, but an organization like this one needs a more hands-on visionary, who can corral the staff, while leaving the administrative and political minutiae to a trusted lieutenant.

entee 8y ago

That certainly makes some sense, but in that case maybe someone who has run a big organization, or built a product would be helpful. I look around and see very few successful startups that were successful on the vision of the CEO alone. So much of success comes from being able to break down walls and get things to work together that didn’t before. Maybe he can do it, but that’s really hard to do. I’d prefer betting on someone who has demonstrated that ability. Put another way it’s like giving $100M seed round to a visionary but completely unproven founder when the company is not even at garage stage. Might work out, but seems quite a bit more likely to fail than $100M given to someone who had done something like it before.

blinkingled 8y ago
That's the traditional way of thinking and it might work well for traditional companies - but something as disruptive as this - I would vote for the visionary/thinker any day over the dyed in the wool, set in his ways guy. Jobs/Sculley and later Tim Cook situation comes to mind - Sculley had the whole CEO experience but look how that turned out and look at how Tim Cook took over operations part which Jobs had no interest or knowledge of and made it work so well. If they had Tim Cook as the CEO pre-iphone days - I am not sure if we would have seen the iPhone.
- tbg7504 8y ago
  Great comparison, but other than articles what kind of products or scalable accomplishments has Atul Gawande achieved in healthcare that is comparable to the impact of the iPhone?
  - blinkingled 8y ago
    This is getting tiring but the point is Atul can be the idea guy, the overall philosophy guy and they can hire other people who have product or scalable accomplishments to execute on the ideas. I think you're not giving Atul enough credit for what he brings to the being the idea guy and having first hand knowledge of what those ideas are about, being able to articulate those etc. He was also a WHO director who ran a successful project reducing surgical deaths around the world - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atul_Gawande
alfredallan1 8y ago
That, precisely, should be the COO’s job description. Like, almost literally. Consider the alternative: the CEO is a professional “manager” who can run the shop, but may (or more likely, may not) understand what the shop is all about. Then who drives vision and strategy? Someone lower in the hierarchy can’t get himself taken seriously enough (sorry, but that’s just the nature of hierarchies). He (Atul) could be made the exec president or something of that sort, but an organization like this one needs a more hands-on visionary, who can corral the staff, while leaving the administrative and political minutiae to a trusted lieutenant.