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I Write Letters to CEOs

johnwdefeo.com

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Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#161

Post by joncrane »

alien_at_work wrote: post #105
joering2 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you sensed it, but both hajrice and Xavdidtheshadow were sarcastic in their posting :) At least what I take from it, good CEO would answer you with "thank you" or whatever, as Benioff is know to be more of a Ellison / Jobs type of asshole CEO, rather than let's say polite Elon Musk, so hajrice made fun that instead, Benioff asked him to buy his book in order to just squeeze few extra bucks from someon…

>let's say polite Elon Musk Uh... where do you get this impression? My impression is that Musk easily fits in the same bucket as Ellison / Jobs / Bezos

I think a lot of people think Ellison/Jobs are in one category and Jobs/Musk are in the other.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#162

Post by joncrane »

bitofhope wrote: post #110

A friend of mine in high school tweeted to Mikko Hyppönen (CRO, F-Secure) and invited him with us for a beer. A few weeks later we met with him in Helsinki over a pizza and discussed cybersecurity, arcade games, politics, pinball and miscellaneous topics. It was fun. Sometimes contacting high profile individuals is all about making the step of reaching out.

That's super cool, and also VERY Scandinavian (culturally).

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#163

Post by lozf »

bradknowles wrote: post #42

One thing I would like to highlight here — writing a letter to a CEO is not just sending an e-mail message. Try writing an actual letter and printing it on real paper, and sending it through the real-world post office. Don’t just dash off an e-mail message.

I feel this could be optimised further: how about emailing the CEO's secretary a PDF, and asking them to print it (on heavy but plain paper), put it in an envelope and deliver it with the rest of CEO's mail.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#164

Post by buckminster »

castlecrasher2 wrote: post #136
ordinaryperson wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To elaborate on why I declined: The District Manager left a voicemail for me asking when he could schedule a tour with me. He was 100% polite, but it sounded like he was gritting his teeth. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but I interpreted it as, "My boss's boss is forcing me to give an idiot like you, someone probably with no experience in retail economics, a tour while I patiently pretend to listen to how you…

You're probably not wrong. The internet's go-to description for CEOs and other executives is sociopath but I've found most leaders at the top to be humble and accommodating. If anyone fits "sociopath" it's more likely to be a middle manager, I find.

> I've found most leaders at the top to be humble and accommodating.

They are just incredibly effective sociopaths.

I'm not even sure if I'm joking.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#165

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Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#166

Post by afarrell »

jnbiche wrote: post #135
darkerside wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is way more difficult in person than it is online in writing. And the fear of getting it wrong can increase with each time that you actually do get it wrong (leading to you replaying the event in your head, eg).

If you're actually worried or concerned about how you're communicating, you're probably fine or at least acceptable. It's the people who are either oblivious to the need to carefully communicate who are the difficult ones, along with those who intentionally ignore societal norms in an effort to prove their "alpha" status.

> If you're actually worried or concerned about how you're communicating, you're probably fine or at least acceptable.

I think I've finally realized how to articulate what my frustration with statements of the form "If you're worried about X, you're fine" is. The person presenting the worry has a prior of [I am worried about this]. They then go seeking a solution that will let them alleviate the worry by taking concrete steps to address it. When they run into the advice "If you're worried, you're fine", they have two problems:

1) If being worried is the only reason why they are at least acceptable, then to continue to be acceptable, they need to continue to be worried.

2) They haven't actually gotten a concrete action to take or thought exercise to go through. That means if the commenter is wrong and they actually do have a habit to work on, the only thing they might be doing differently is telling their intuition (system 1 for the Khanemann fans) "Hey, you know that alarm? turn it off." Their intuition probably doesn't listen very well and probably keeps them worried, but it is also no longer acting as a useful signal whatsoever of the problem.

----

The approach I would take is to come up with a list of actually-answerable questions to ask myself, to have faith in my intuitions on those questions unless I get concrete evidence that they are wrong, and then to work to make peace with the remaining discomfort. For example, when driving a car:

- Buy a wide-angle rear-view mirror so you have better spatial awareness.

- When opening any car door from the insite, habitually practice doing the Dutch reach.

- When you are aware of a cyclist, know the reference points on the car that you should keep them at so you are a safe passing distance.

- Don't do anything else besides perhaps converse with another human in the car while I'm driving.

- Practice scanning my environment while driving and other generally-safe driving habits.

- Having practiced your duty of care -- Accept the reality that at some point I might end up crushing another person's ribcage and snuffing out the life of someone's father/brother/aunt/teacher -- a fellow human.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#167

Post by known »

RankingMember wrote: post #119
known wrote: post #106

I once wrote a letter to Top CEO. And I got a reply from his Lawyer.

Shouldn't have "written" it with each individual letter being cut-out and pasted from random magazines/newspapers. ;)

I wrote to Carly Fiorina suggesting that all HP devices should embed Skype/Whatsapp type of software

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#168

Post by workinthehead »

joncrane wrote: post #162
bitofhope wrote: post #110

A friend of mine in high school tweeted to Mikko Hyppönen (CRO, F-Secure) and invited him with us for a beer. A few weeks later we met with him in Helsinki over a pizza and discussed cybersecurity, arcade games, politics, pinball and miscellaneous topics. It was fun. Sometimes contacting high profile individuals is all about making the step of reaching out.

That's super cool, and also VERY Scandinavian (culturally).

Finland is not Scandinavian.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#169

Post by darkerside »

jnbiche wrote: post #135
darkerside wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is way more difficult in person than it is online in writing. And the fear of getting it wrong can increase with each time that you actually do get it wrong (leading to you replaying the event in your head, eg).

If you're actually worried or concerned about how you're communicating, you're probably fine or at least acceptable. It's the people who are either oblivious to the need to carefully communicate who are the difficult ones, along with those who intentionally ignore societal norms in an effort to prove their "alpha" status.

Not when you're so worried about how you'll be perceived that you soften your statements beyond comprehension. And yes, this absolutely happens, and no, you probably don't realize if you're doing it.

Try re-reading a peer performance review you've written after the fact. It can be eye-opening.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#170

Post by megamindbrian2 »

tomcam wrote: post #45
megamindbrian2 wrote: post #18

This is awesome. I've written Jeff Bezos dozens of emails, I should write a blog post on it. Most of them complaints that some time get directed to the right forum and a proper response, a few of them praise, and a few of them completely insane or mean that I assume are ignored or caused some secretary to ask for a vacation.

I wish I had as much spare time as you

Time is a concept, it's not something we have or lack.

I spent a year working over 4,500 hours and recorded every task down to the hour and still never felt productive. I got a lot done and wrote thousands of lines of code, but it's of no use to anyone now.

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