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Au Revoir

blog.docker.com

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Re: Au Revoir

#181

Post by ghaff »

zupreme wrote: post #129
hartator wrote: post #23

It always amazes me how you can convince a founder/CEO is not right man for the job, and slowly push him away. Companies that succeed are driven by burning vision, not by day-to-day operation people. It might make feel the companies run smoother for some time, but day-to-day executives are harmful to a company core vision leading to boring companies if they manage to sustain profitability in the long run at all.

I disagree. This is EXACTLY why roles such as "Chief Operating Officer" and "Director of Operations" exist. You don't make your company succeed by giving up control. You hire people you do control who have the skills you lack.

And those skills may include taking the company in directions that you may not agree with. What then?

Re: Au Revoir

#183

Post by jjeaff »

freehunter wrote: post #174
mistersquid wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, because I absolutely agree with your assessment. But then I started a couple of thought experiments. How about the reverse case? Would, say, Meg Whitman or Satya Nadella, for example, be able to act as a CEO or co-founder of a small company, say But then I thought about Bill Joy, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and, well, you hopefully get my point. Which is, even thoug…

I think the phrase you're looking for is "exceptions that prove the rule". For every CEO that took a company from nothing to 10k employees, there are so many more examples of the opposite that you can't even begin to name them. You're able to name the exceptions because there are so few exceptions.

But it is worthy of note that right now, the top 6 largest companies (by market cap) in the US are or were helmed by their founders well into their fortune 500 status with many thousands of employees.

Re: Au Revoir

#184

Post by derefr »

mbesto wrote: post #172
maerF0x0 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Running a company of 10 people is VERY different from running a company of 100, which is VERY VERY different from running a company of 1000 IMO thats a classist lie that keeps people in their place. Any reasonably smart CEO can learn his way from 10 - 10000. Yes, (s)he may not be capable of 10k on day one, but they can grow along the way.

> Any reasonably smart CEO Sorry but this is extremely naive and I'm sorry that your naïveté has caused you conclude things which are simply not true. This is a very strong assumption, and a lie that is peddled by the media (Zuck is the greatest example of this) to create a novel story. I'm not saying it's impossible, it's just a dangerous assumption. For the record, I've interviewed over 75 software founders (CEO/CT…

Of course it’s less than 50%; that doesn’t mean that it’s a negligible proportion, either.

Analogy: (far) less than 50% of military officers have what it takes to be a general/admiral/other “logistics at scale” type. But yet still, military officers with experience commanding in smaller engagements are the only good source of those high-level strategists. If people couldn’t grow into roles requiring more responsibility of them, militaries would be “making” admirals and generals from scratch.

Does that sound feasible? If not, then why would one be able to “make” a Fortune 500 CEO out of anything other than an existing, experienced SMB CEO?

Re: Au Revoir

#185

Post by curun1r »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #104
romanhn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a reason why most startups don't go big - burning vision is not even close to being the right formula for success. Running a company of 10 people is VERY different from running a company of 100, which is VERY VERY different from running a company of 1000. Just like precious few individual contributors are comfortable with and able to contribute meaningfully in this wide range of environments, it doesn't make…

> Running a company of 10 people is VERY different from running a company of 100, which is VERY VERY different from running a company of 1000 IMO thats a classist lie that keeps people in their place. Any reasonably smart CEO can learn his way from 10 - 10000. Yes, (s)he may not be capable of 10k on day one, but they can grow along the way.

One need only look at Soloman's posting history on this site to see why he was the right person to lead Docker during its inception and the wrong person to lead Docker long term. It was clear in the discussions over Docker that Soloman was passionate about the technology he'd created and had a very particular vision for its future, which was often at odds with the way that posters here saw Docker and wanted it to evolve. But Soloman seemed to lack the ability to be diplomatic about it and showed some poor judgment in what he said publicly. That led to quite a few public spats that reflected poorly on Docker.

It's absolutely true that some people can evolve from a leader of a small company/team/project into a leader for a much larger one. But it's also absolutely true that not everyone can and that the skills to lead that larger endeavor are significantly different from the skills needed to get something off the ground. It's likely that Docker would never have gotten off the ground without someone like Soloman to take a very opinionated stance and drag people towards his vision. But if Docker is to continue to succeed, it now needs to expand its reach learn to be what people need rather than convincing people that they need Docker. Not being on the inside, I can't say for sure whether Soloman is capable of evolving into a leader that can move Docker in this direction, but the superficial view from the outside suggests to me that this was probably the right decision. It's no knock against him as either a leader or a technologist, it just feels like it's not the best fit going forward and his efforts would be better spent on something new that pushes a new vision forward.

Re: Au Revoir

#186

Post by WJW »

zupreme wrote: post #129
hartator wrote: post #23

It always amazes me how you can convince a founder/CEO is not right man for the job, and slowly push him away. Companies that succeed are driven by burning vision, not by day-to-day operation people. It might make feel the companies run smoother for some time, but day-to-day executives are harmful to a company core vision leading to boring companies if they manage to sustain profitability in the long run at all.

I disagree. This is EXACTLY why roles such as "Chief Operating Officer" and "Director of Operations" exist. You don't make your company succeed by giving up control. You hire people you do control who have the skills you lack.

What if the skill the founder lacks is in leadership or vision? People like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg who can code AND lead are the absolute minority. I know more than a few founders who, while charismatic, absolutely do not have the temperament or skills to grow the business beyond 50 or people.

Re: Au Revoir

#187

Post by mmaunder »

hartator wrote: post #23

It always amazes me how you can convince a founder/CEO is not right man for the job, and slowly push him away. Companies that succeed are driven by burning vision, not by day-to-day operation people. It might make feel the companies run smoother for some time, but day-to-day executives are harmful to a company core vision leading to boring companies if they manage to sustain profitability in the long run at all.

Agreed. And leading and inspiring a team is done by having a burning vision, communicating it to the team, getting them excited and making it their vision too and doing that on a daily basis.

Day to day operations can be handled by COO, CFO, CMO, VP and other lieutenant roles. Why not hire Steve Singh as chief operating officer? Why not even lower down the totem pole? Is it because there's a fear that 'talent' of that quality may not take the job without a CEO title? Money can solve that. If there's an ego in the way, perhaps that's a problem.

I've scaled our business from 2 people to 10 to 20 and now to 30 with high 8 figures in revenue. I'm quite comfortable that I can scale it to any number. The reason is that I am very comfortable hiring people that are smarter than me and putting them in leadership roles in the organization, stepping back and trusting them and heavily relying on them to do an excellent job.

Stepping back and trusting takes an incredible leap of faith as a founder. You also need to be comfortable asking Fortune 5000 execs to work for you in a VP or C suite role. You also need to be able to pay them. If you can do those three things, you can assemble a team of lieutenants that will run their business divisions, provide you excellent visibility in all areas without over communicating and you will be able to scale into infinity as they replicate your strategy for scaling by hiring trusted lieutenants.

It also helps if you know how little you actually know, can be completely honest about that with your exec team and ask them for help and input and trust them to give you what you need.

I haven't experienced this, but it seems to me that firing founder CEOs and 'hiring a mature CEO' is conventional VC wisdom and it's based on a pattern they've seen work. e.g. Cisco. Once you raise big VC, I'm not sure that as a young founder you actually have a say unless you specifically build controls into your funding agreements. In FB, Zuck controls about 60% of the voting rights. He's 33. You have to ask yourself if he'd be CEO if the voting structure was different.

Re: Au Revoir

#188

Post by MereInterest »

freehunter wrote: post #174
mistersquid wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, because I absolutely agree with your assessment. But then I started a couple of thought experiments. How about the reverse case? Would, say, Meg Whitman or Satya Nadella, for example, be able to act as a CEO or co-founder of a small company, say But then I thought about Bill Joy, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and, well, you hopefully get my point. Which is, even thoug…

I think the phrase you're looking for is "exceptions that prove the rule". For every CEO that took a company from nothing to 10k employees, there are so many more examples of the opposite that you can't even begin to name them. You're able to name the exceptions because there are so few exceptions.

That phrase is widely misused. The intended usage is where a rule is implied by the explicit stating of an exception. For example, a sign labeled "No Parking 9AM - 7PM" states an exception, and implies that parking is allowed outside of the time. The stating of the exception proves the existence of the more general rule.

In this case, the appropriate term would be "survivorship bias". Those who survive are noticed and used to generalize to the group, even if their survival is atypical of the group as a whole.

Re: Au Revoir

#189

Post by goatherders »

s2g wrote: post #145
geofft wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies that succeed are driven by burning vision, not by day-to-day operation people. What is the evidence for this? We can throw anecdotes like Apple on one side and Unilever on the other, sure, but is there any study saying e.g. "Of these 100 promising companies founded in 1990, x% of the founder-led ones were successful by 2010 whereas y% of the outside-CEO-led ones were?" Making a bold claim like "Companies…

It’s the standard HN cult of the founder post. Goes right along with the idea that early employees deserve pretty much nothing because “it’s the founders taking all the risk”.

Agreed. It's amazing how many people (including many here) prioritize being CEO of a successful company over being the founder of a successful company. Attaching your Self worth to the continued adoration of others in the business community is silly and dangerous. I know people who founded hugely successful businesses and their moving on from being CEO played a big role.

Re: Au Revoir

#190

Post by segmondy »

I'm only interested in 2 things. a) Is he happy, was the journey worth it? b) How much money did he make?

So long as he is happy and he didn't expose himself to any financial ruin. It's all good.

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