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Not a fan of the title.The post doesn't even go on to argue that "you're" not the CEO, just that "you're" ALSO the janitor. So "You're the CEO - but You're Also the Fucking Janitor" would be more accurate.
It's important to remember that the CEO/founder role is where the buck stops. You're ultimately responsible for every mistake and fixing it. He's right that it's not glamorous. I think that if you're a sole founder you figure this out pretty quickly though. And as a rule of thumb: Always ignore Silicon Valley hype. By the way: writing words in ALL CAPS, italicizing lots of things , and saying 'fucking' a lot made it…
Thanks for the feedback. I typically italicize and bold things in an effort to break up the black/white monotony of my site but I'll keep the advice in mind and maybe go back and make some edits. As for the 'fucking' I agree, it was actually pretty hard to write too. I grew up in a middle class family in the South most of whom would be appalled by the way this post was written(the language) but I thought it put some…
It's important to remember that the CEO/founder role is where the buck stops. You're ultimately responsible for every mistake and fixing it. He's right that it's not glamorous. I think that if you're a sole founder you figure this out pretty quickly though. And as a rule of thumb: Always ignore Silicon Valley hype. By the way: writing words in ALL CAPS, italicizing lots of things , and saying 'fucking' a lot made it…
Thanks for the feedback. I typically italicize and bold things in an effort to break up the black/white monotony of my site but I'll keep the advice in mind and maybe go back and make some edits. As for the 'fucking' I agree, it was actually pretty hard to write too. I grew up in a middle class family in the South most of whom would be appalled by the way this post was written(the language) but I thought it put some…
The post is about how being CEO isn't all glamor, and includes doing dirty work as well. And you make clear that you feel the janitor, unlike a figurehead who merely signs documents, contributes something useful and necessary to the enterprise.
Unfortunately, denigrating the janitor by tagging the role as "fucking" just buys into the CEO-as-glamorous-leader mindset that the post argues against. It transforms the title from a correction ("You think you are the CEO, but in reality you are in charge of the dirty work") into a put-down ("You think you are the CEO, but in reality you are the lowest of the low.")
Yes, it sounds stronger-- but, in my mind, it shades your meaning in ways you probably don't intend.
Seems appropriate to quote an old HN comment ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3905794 ): "After the first night of the 2008 SciFoo conference at Google, @gnat Torkington's twitter stream contained a gem: 'At SciFoo opening session. 300 people standing around networking. Meanwhile, Larry Page is quietly unpacking chairs at the back of the room.' (from memory, not exact)" The CEO (or any leader)'s job is to make s…
The "CEO": This guy had a large stake in the company. It was his baby, and while the "CEO" title (which I think gets way over applied) fits him, his official title is "managing partner". While we were in the process of build->launch, he was heavily involved in literally every single department. Not in a micro-managing way, in an "this needs to be done and here, I am going to help" way.
It would absolutely not have seemed strange to me, or anybody else, to see him out on a scissor lift with a hammer drill and some cables mounting something to the wall, if that's what was needed. When we did launch, some things went...wrong.
The night before we opened, he, as well as some of his friends, not even people employed by us, spent until almost-down doing "grunt" work. Dirty, tedious work moving huge heavy things around, and walking all over the place to get them.
That night he slept here (so did I)
The months leading up until that launch, and the months following it, he was here until well after dark because a lot of the people who had been hired were "green", and had no idea how to do their job yet. We were all figuring it out as we went.
The culture here at that time was addictive (and I wish we could get that feeling back of "making it up as we go". We've got everything pretty well dialed now). People throw the cliche of "we were a family" around pretty liberally, and I'm going to throw it around too.
We were a family.
We ate together, we drank together, and the "core" group always left together, meaning that nobody left until everybody's work was done. (including the managing partner, who absolutely didn't need to be, and was the one setting the example).
This has been an absolutely amazing company to work for. The culture here was, or is amazing.
The sad bit is that a lot of the culture that I fell in love with has faded. Yes, we're growing (rapidly! Awesome!), but we've more-or-less all hit our grooves. I know what I'm doing, the "CEO" does to, and there aren't really any scissors lifts or hammer drills left.
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I guess I'll end the story with a question: how do I/we get back to that?
Seems appropriate to quote an old HN comment ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3905794 ): "After the first night of the 2008 SciFoo conference at Google, @gnat Torkington's twitter stream contained a gem: 'At SciFoo opening session. 300 people standing around networking. Meanwhile, Larry Page is quietly unpacking chairs at the back of the room.' (from memory, not exact)" The CEO (or any leader)'s job is to make s…
it really piss me off, when we ask an employee who is being paid peanuts to show the same dedication to his work place as the ceo or the owner, and claim this is the ethical thing to do
If you can make a definite judgement of someone based on their job title alone ('Intern'), you're already lost.