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You're not the CEO - You're the Fucking Janitor

zachbruhnke.com

121–130 of 146 posts

Re: You're not the CEO - You're the Fucking Janitor

#121
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it ironic that you have a problem with curse words as they represent immaturity, but you're fine with throwing demeaning insults at people.

No irony in called a spade a spade. In my opinion, it the sign of a weak mind to need to use profanity to express strong emotion, of trying to 'write with fire' but failing utterly. A great writer never will need to resort to that so frequently, and then, when used super rarely, it is powerful. Used a lot, just meh -- and weak. Like an unrefined learner, a boy.

Only a child responds strongly to the world fuck. Most teenagers go through a phase of using it every third word. But, most adults I know only revert to peppering there language with it when they feel a type of mild annoyance. Normal speech and strong emotions evoke their own unique responses, but dealing with self absorbed idiots for to long and you think they might have Tourette syndrome while they unwind.

Re: You're not the CEO - You're the Fucking Janitor

#123

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…

That's a really cool story. He saw something needed to be done, so he did it. That's the kind of person I want to work with.

Re: You're not the CEO - You're the Fucking Janitor

#126

Anybody else think this guy seriously needs to pipe down? He sounds like 37signals minus the success. Every pleb thinks they can do a better job than the king. Nero thought that too...

Did not realize we were comparing successes. But just for your information I am 25. I had a seven figure exit before I could legally buy beer. I am a ycombinator alumni and I am building another startup right now that I hope will have it's own unique impact.

So maybe I'm not DHH but I am certainly not just some guy with a big mouth and no track record

Re: You're not the CEO - You're the Fucking Janitor

#128

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…

It's not so much that I disagree with it, as I just get tired of seeing it brought up every single time a blog post has a swear word in it.

Re: You're not the CEO - You're the Fucking Janitor

#129
post #17

I heard an anecdote a while back. One day, the employees of a small company arrive at work to discover that someone has taken a shit on the floor. Who's going to clean it? The owner of course. He didn't hire anyone whose job is to clean shit up, he can't reasonably expect any of them to do it, so he has to do it.

Great comment. Funny and true. A CEO's job is also to clean up the metaphorical shit that gets dumped: I had one of those days today. Someone's got to do it.
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