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Relax, it's a quick sunday read. Go do something nice for someone.
The writer's a VP, won awards, worked in i-banking, and has a double bachelors from an ivy league. She's trying to be cheeky and the first hot takes from the HN community is whoa, how dare they! Relax, it's a quick sunday read. Go do something nice for someone.
> Prior to this role, my “operating experience” consisted of working as a waitress during college. I found this line astounding and not in good ways. When a new senior person is announced (even interim), the first thing most people do is ask "what has this person done?" and they scour LinkedIn, writing, social media, etc to understand what they're about and their background. I'm trying to imagine senior leadership's…
It’s easier to be a board member than a CEO . Shouldn't this be obvious? A board member sleeps, has no or little personal skin in the game and is hedged across multiple ventures. The CEO rarely sleeps (or has more responsibilities than time permits addressed), is "all in" and rarely substantially hedged, especially in early-stage startups.
> Prior to this role, my “operating experience” consisted of working as a waitress during college. I found this line astounding and not in good ways. When a new senior person is announced (even interim), the first thing most people do is ask "what has this person done?" and they scour LinkedIn, writing, social media, etc to understand what they're about and their background. I'm trying to imagine senior leadership's…
It’s easier to be a board member than a CEO . Shouldn't this be obvious? A board member sleeps, has no or little personal skin in the game and is hedged across multiple ventures. The CEO rarely sleeps (or has more responsibilities than time permits addressed), is "all in" and rarely substantially hedged, especially in early-stage startups.
Who doesn't have "more responsibilities than time permits addressed"? There's a reason most of us don't call our moms so often.
edit: of any company over say 30 in size.
It appears that she's someone who didn't come from means, put herself through college by waitressing, kept getting jobs in PE/VC (haven't looked up her bio as that would be creepy), and became a senior enough player at a firm to be installed as an interim-keep-the-ship-steady CEO while a new candidate was being found.
Job performance has a high correlation with IQ (and by extension the ability to learn quickly); especially for executive roles. The author is someone who juggles complex financial models all day; surely she's more than smart, capable and relentlessly resourceful enough to take on the mantle of an interim CEO. Sure, she might not be a long-term candidate (for now), but an interim CEO is meant to make sure that the finances stay okay, the fires get put out, and that the ship doesn't sink until a new skipper can be found. That's all. It's a job that's not too far from her initial skills with an added operational component that she's delving into over here. Compared to most "CEOs" I've met, she's probably overqualified.
For those questioning the VC firm who sent her in, it's impossible that she was sent in alone. She's probably being advised by the GPs and a curated set of experts to make the right operational decisions. Her job is to execute the plan and Not Fuck Up (a harder job than it seems). And it appears that she succeeded in doing so.
She rose to her professional challenge, learned something and wrote something from a position of humility. How many of us (especially the detractors) can claim the same?
VCs without any operational experience are a major problem. This is why so many companies get advised into the overfunded death cycle and never actually build a sustainable enterprise. I find it surprising that not a single one of the existing 100 employees could be temporarily promoted to the CEO role.
Or a contract temporary CEO found - plenty of them around and presumably a VC would know many.
"The company has 100+ employees, hundreds of customers, and more than 15,000 end users. I spent almost four months as CEO. Prior to this role, my “operating experience” consisted of working as a waitress during college. My entire professional career has been in finance, where I have worked in small, flat organizations with a project-driven, deal team-oriented model. In short, I had no idea what to expect, and I learn…
It’s easier to be a board member than a CEO . Shouldn't this be obvious? A board member sleeps, has no or little personal skin in the game and is hedged across multiple ventures. The CEO rarely sleeps (or has more responsibilities than time permits addressed), is "all in" and rarely substantially hedged, especially in early-stage startups.
I know of a small (30 million a year) organization where board members input 20-40 hours a week. Not nearly as much as a CEO...but still much more then in other orgs.