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What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

venturebeat.com

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Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#51

Post by arkadiytehgraet »

Instead of suggesting better suited person for the role, I believe we should consider this as yet another example of reality where CEOs do not really influence outcome of the company, especially once it has grown to 100+ employees. Most of the points in the article ("insights") are buzzword filled generic Markov chain generated advice that you can find in pretty much any other book or website.

I would bet a certain amount of money that if they hired an actual waitress, the results would not have been worse and, most probably, better.

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#52

Post by dang »

All: some comments below have taken a tack that's not good for HN: seizing on one line, in which the author was obviously downplaying herself, then piling on with pedestrian indignation. That makes for lame discussion—equal parts sour and boring. The value of HN is curiosity. If you find yourself driven to post like that, please wait until curiosity is what you're feeling instead. Then you'll respond to something interesting in this unusual article. Or perhaps you'll find something more interesting elsewhere. Either is fine, but piling on is for other places.

There's a site guideline that covers this: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize." It applies to articles too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#53

Post by dang »

keiferski wrote: post #14

...sometimes we need to recruit more experienced leadership. While we encourage companies to have a clear succession plan for the CEO, often companies at this stage ($10-50 million in revenue) do not have built-in successors. Last fall, one of our portfolio companies (without a succession plan) lost its CEO... In other words, the VC firm wanted the founder CEO gone but didn't have a credible alternative ready yet, so…

> In other words, the...

Whoa. You don't know that, and assuming it here in order to bump up the indignation does not make for a good HN comment. We're not here to imagine angry things, nor to take threads on generic tangents ("just another reminder").

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#54

Post by [deleted] »

dang wrote: post #52

All: some comments below have taken a tack that's not good for HN: seizing on one line, in which the author was obviously downplaying herself, then piling on with pedestrian indignation. That makes for lame discussion—equal parts sour and boring. The value of HN is curiosity. If you find yourself driven to post like that, please wait until curiosity is what you're feeling instead. Then you'll respond to something int…

[deleted]

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#55

Post by mattigames »

dang wrote: post #52

All: some comments below have taken a tack that's not good for HN: seizing on one line, in which the author was obviously downplaying herself, then piling on with pedestrian indignation. That makes for lame discussion—equal parts sour and boring. The value of HN is curiosity. If you find yourself driven to post like that, please wait until curiosity is what you're feeling instead. Then you'll respond to something int…

It seems you have a very specific kind of comment with a specific content that you want to see here, if thats the case you may post it yourself and disable all others to be completely sure the existing comments are within the bounds of the guidelines.

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#56

Post by dang »

mattigames wrote: post #55
dang wrote: post #52

All: some comments below have taken a tack that's not good for HN: seizing on one line, in which the author was obviously downplaying herself, then piling on with pedestrian indignation. That makes for lame discussion—equal parts sour and boring. The value of HN is curiosity. If you find yourself driven to post like that, please wait until curiosity is what you're feeling instead. Then you'll respond to something int…

It seems you have a very specific kind of comment with a specific content that you want to see here, if thats the case you may post it yourself and disable all others to be completely sure the existing comments are within the bounds of the guidelines.

Not at all. It's indignation that's specific; curiosity is legion. When I post like that, the purpose is to encourage less common, wider-ranging comments. Those don't always appear without help, for the same reason that flowers don't always grow through weeds.

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#57

Post by neonate »

xfitm3 wrote: post #49
mrosett wrote: post #36

I’m not impressed with the comments here. The author has eight years of experience in finance and was apparently the best person to fill this role despite her lack of directly relevant experience. (You might disagree, but that was the perspective of investors with a lot of skin in the game.) The article makes good points and is well written. And yet it seems half of the comments can’t get past the fact that she worke…

Sexism is a low blow and unsubstantiated outside of the suffix "ress". Provide proof for your claims.

I think the GP went a bit far, but I can't help feeling a bit of it in the air. Something about the word "waitress" caused a weird backlash. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19957074 is not a good-faith comment.

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#58

Post by keiferski »

dang wrote: post #53
keiferski wrote: post #14

...sometimes we need to recruit more experienced leadership. While we encourage companies to have a clear succession plan for the CEO, often companies at this stage ($10-50 million in revenue) do not have built-in successors. Last fall, one of our portfolio companies (without a succession plan) lost its CEO... In other words, the VC firm wanted the founder CEO gone but didn't have a credible alternative ready yet, so…

> In other words, the... Whoa. You don't know that, and assuming it here in order to bump up the indignation does not make for a good HN comment. We're not here to imagine angry things, nor to take threads on generic tangents ("just another reminder"). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Fair enough, maybe my comment was a bit too presumptive + aggressive. Nonetheless, the phrasing used in the article (“lost a CEO”) combined with the fact that VC firms often replace founder CEOs makes it pretty likely that this was the case.

But yes, ultimately I don’t know the situation.

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#59

Post by kristianov »

mrosett wrote: post #36

I’m not impressed with the comments here. The author has eight years of experience in finance and was apparently the best person to fill this role despite her lack of directly relevant experience. (You might disagree, but that was the perspective of investors with a lot of skin in the game.) The article makes good points and is well written. And yet it seems half of the comments can’t get past the fact that she worke…

If the author were a man, you would not bring gender into the discussion. Also, by bringing gender into the discussion, you've only managed to expose your own biases, not the others'.

Re: What I learned as a VC filling in as a startup CEO for 4 months

#60

Post by dang »

keiferski wrote: post #58
dang wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, the... Whoa. You don't know that, and assuming it here in order to bump up the indignation does not make for a good HN comment. We're not here to imagine angry things, nor to take threads on generic tangents ("just another reminder"). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Fair enough, maybe my comment was a bit too presumptive + aggressive. Nonetheless, the phrasing used in the article (“lost a CEO”) combined with the fact that VC firms often replace founder CEOs makes it pretty likely that this was the case. But yes, ultimately I don’t know the situation.

Thank you for the fair response.
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