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I Write Letters to CEOs

johnwdefeo.com

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Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#101

Post by Bromskloss »

leroy_masochist wrote: post #32
wgerard wrote: post #4

> the compound annual return of the respondent group is 8.97% greater than the non-respondent companies. That's actually interesting, because I could easily explain away the opposite result: CEOs who waste their time responding to personal letters aren't focused on improving company performance. For example, there's some potential negative correlation between time spent playing golf and company performance [1]. Grant…

Here's my anecdotal-experience-driven theory of what's going on with the golfing-CEO companies underperforming the non-golfing-CEO ones: it isn't a matter of lost productive hours while golfing instead of working. It's that the golfing CEOs are, as a population, different from the non-golfing ones. The golfing ones are a bit more extroverted and charismatic than the non-golfers; they "look like CEOs". They are more l…

> you should trust surgeons who don't look like surgeons

What _does_ a typical surgeon look like, then? I didn't know they had a look.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#102

Post by imgabe »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #51
losteric wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is CEOs that pay attention to smaller things miss fewer opportunities, and build a culture of doing so across the company. Look up Bezos' infamous "?" emails.

"?" isn't paying attention to things; it's telling other people to pay attention to things. It's building a culture, I guess.

Telling other people which things to pay attention to is the CEO's job.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#103

Post by giancarlostoro »

oreganoz wrote: post #94
canoebuilder wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your post, or at least the way I understand it I hope is wrong. You basically seem to be trying to win points based on your identity, a popular game these days, but completely out of place in this conversation, and everywhere really. I think you misunderstood my post, I wasn't bemoaning that everyone's grammar isn't perfect. I was pointing out that the things learned very early in language educatio…

On the other hand, maybe too much importance is given to how the information is presented. Rather than focus on the content and the ideas evoked, just make a passive-aggresive snark so that you gain useless points by people who couldn't give a crap about the discussion but found the comment funny. After that, you can just ignore that person's opinions since they obviously are too incompetent to write in proper form.…

> You learn early on the importance of good language skills, you also ought to learn how to treat people with some respect by trying to ignore the minor things and not showcase them off like you've found anything worth of value.

> If you value properly written text over others, fair enough, but don't waste your time and everyone's time by making a comment that contributes to nothing but elitistic egos.

Well said, this is the gist of it. Sometimes it can be tasteful, other times it's like those posts that we try to avoid here on HN such as "thanks", "lol" etc. Posts that just add uneeded noise.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#104

Post by zingmars »

wgerard wrote: post #4

> the compound annual return of the respondent group is 8.97% greater than the non-respondent companies. That's actually interesting, because I could easily explain away the opposite result: CEOs who waste their time responding to personal letters aren't focused on improving company performance. For example, there's some potential negative correlation between time spent playing golf and company performance [1]. Grant…

> CEOs who waste their time responding to personal letters aren't focused on improving company performance

To be fair, you can't always be working. Sometimes you need to wind down, and golfing or responding to your customers does sound like something a CEO would do while winding down.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#105

Post by alien_at_work »

joering2 wrote: post #53
make3 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I that's pretty weird tbh

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

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#107

Post by anoncoward111 »

oreganoz wrote: post #94
canoebuilder wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand your post, or at least the way I understand it I hope is wrong. You basically seem to be trying to win points based on your identity, a popular game these days, but completely out of place in this conversation, and everywhere really. I think you misunderstood my post, I wasn't bemoaning that everyone's grammar isn't perfect. I was pointing out that the things learned very early in language educatio…

On the other hand, maybe too much importance is given to how the information is presented. Rather than focus on the content and the ideas evoked, just make a passive-aggresive snark so that you gain useless points by people who couldn't give a crap about the discussion but found the comment funny. After that, you can just ignore that person's opinions since they obviously are too incompetent to write in proper form.…

Here, wait, let me type with proper grammar and punctuation on this one.

How depressing it is that the only response to my initial comment is talking about punctuation. My grammar is actually correct, too. Instead of using periods, I hit enter. Instead of capitalizing "I", I used "i" instead because I feel it is quicker, still readable, and unique.

I guess any publicity is good publicity!

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#108

Post by jacquesm »

bjelkeman-again wrote: post #96
jacquesm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have taken him up on it. If an issue is important enough to me to write the CEO of a company then it would have most likely been important enough to me to respond pro-actively to a meaningful response. Otherwise what's the point of writing such a letter in the first place?

Being too busy is of course a legitimate reason. Without knowing why he declined it is silly to criticise it, I think.

Not too busy to send letters to the CEO.

I never get this: you start a conversation and then when the other party engages you disengage. The CEO's response was about as good as you could wish for and would give an opportunity to influence the view of the company at the level where it matters. That's what you intend when you write to the CEO, you do that because they are the people that can make stuff happen, including putting you in touch with the right person further down the org, not because you want to chat with the CEO. They're just a very visible access point and writing them a letter is a way of saying 'this really matters to me'.

If you are too busy to follow up on such a response then maybe you could save everybody time by not writing the letter in the first place.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#109

Post by what-the-grump »

mathgenius wrote: post #89
scandox wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're wrong. Powerful people are very often influenced by chance encounters, by mere happenstance. I've seen it a hundred times: decisions (or at least discussions) driven by accidental meetings on planes or trains. Something overheard at the pool or in a bar. It's because these guys know at some level that they're in a closed chamber, away from the reality that underlies their corporate activity and if they…

> at some level that they're in a closed chamber I actually think it's the opposite: really successful people get there because they are more vulnerable. At least in my experience, whenever I met someone like this, they always seem way more responsive and open than the usual joe.

Most of them exist in an echo chamber. It’s rare to see them talking to or having time to think outside the current situation. Especially if they are self made (meaning they are leaning closer to the control freak side). It’s rare for regular people like me get a blast of outside perspective on my day to day, let alone an evaluation of wtf I do at work or how I can do it better.

Re: I Write Letters to CEOs

#110

Post by bitofhope »

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.

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