4 ms·

I find that CEOs are often the last to realize or admit the reality of suckitude a company is under. I mean if you did your job right as CEO, you are the dumbe

I find that CEOs are often the last to realize or admit the reality of suckitude a company is under. I mean if you did your job right as CEO, you are the dumbest person there. You spend all your time being upbeat and optimistic in public (maybe horribly depressed in private?). Your engineers and managers, who are experts in divining information out of the smallest bits of data (single line bugs anyone?) are much smarter than you realize. I have rarely seen a CEO that I completely respect. They just don't have the ability to aggregately integrate every detail in the company and tend to lead things to a crash and burn as a result.

omilu 13y ago
What about Gates, Jobs, and Buffet?
- ryanobjc 13y ago
  Perfect counter examples, and I respect them all.
kaib 13y ago
Extrapolating from your use of "they" and the implied "us" I'm guessing that you haven't worked in the role of a CEO yourself. Taking that responsibility for a few years might not increase your respect for individuals but it will increase your respect for the difficulty of the job.
- ryanobjc 13y ago
  I think my problem doesn't have to do with how hard the job is or not, but with the quality and honesty of the communications. A lot of the startup CEOs I have seen tend to have a "this is my company" sort of feeling. But by expressing that feeling to their employees, they crowd their employee's feelings in this regard. Everyone who works for a startup wants to feel like they OWN the company. That's why you join one. For that feeling of ownership. But when a CEO talks with these "sole ownership" feelings, people GET it. Also if a CEO uses evasive or trivializing language or behavior about the state of the company, people's internal sense of dissonance causes a rift of trust AT THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME. I have seen this pattern play out a few times as the "non CEO" position. Yeah it's a hard job, but if you didn't want the challenge of a lifetime, why take the job?

omilu 13y ago

What about Gates, Jobs, and Buffet?

ryanobjc 13y ago
Perfect counter examples, and I respect them all.

kaib 13y ago

Extrapolating from your use of "they" and the implied "us" I'm guessing that you haven't worked in the role of a CEO yourself. Taking that responsibility for a few years might not increase your respect for individuals but it will increase your respect for the difficulty of the job.

ryanobjc 13y ago
I think my problem doesn't have to do with how hard the job is or not, but with the quality and honesty of the communications. A lot of the startup CEOs I have seen tend to have a "this is my company" sort of feeling. But by expressing that feeling to their employees, they crowd their employee's feelings in this regard. Everyone who works for a startup wants to feel like they OWN the company. That's why you join one. For that feeling of ownership. But when a CEO talks with these "sole ownership" feelings, people GET it. Also if a CEO uses evasive or trivializing language or behavior about the state of the company, people's internal sense of dissonance causes a rift of trust AT THE WORST POSSIBLE TIME. I have seen this pattern play out a few times as the "non CEO" position. Yeah it's a hard job, but if you didn't want the challenge of a lifetime, why take the job?