executive

“People who disappoint you in the short term disappoint you in the long term.”

“I think it's very rare to see that flexibility. I, it is that rare bird to find the person who can work at the public style company, or the company that's on that smooth paved road that is scaling, that can also go do the early stage stuff, or that gravelly ro…”

“If basically they seem behind the ball versus six months ahead in terms of planning and thinking forward and what should be done next, then that's usually a sign that they just aren't really ready for that role.”

“A key point, I think Ben Horowitz makes this in his book is, and I think it's a general truism is to really focus on hiring people who will be great for the next 12 to 18 months. Hiring somebody who's ran a multi-thousand person team, if you're only a 50 perso…”

“So exceptional people want to work for people that they feel like they can learn from. And if that individual just can't attract great talent, that means that people of that function just don't view them as very competent.”

“One of the best tactics is to really go almost on a tour of the experts in a specific functional area. So for example, if you've never hired a general counsel, or if you've never hired a CFO, really what you want to do is figure out what is great in that role.…”

“I think one of the key problems in a lot of companies is that executives simply have too much time, and they need to spend that time on something, and often that time is spent interfering with the people who actually do the work.”

“I see a mistake a lot of executives make, and this is outside of growth too, where they're like, they'll expect their manager or the CEO to like take care of their problems for them. And it's like, no, that's not what happens. Like you got to go solve those pr…”

“You do need to give them some time and, you know, also founders, I would say suck at giving feedback. There's many reasons why For some days it's hard to give, you know, constructive feedback to senior leaders, but you do need to give them feedback to talk abo…”

“A good sales rep uses us as a pawn. I always say, I'm an actor in the sales reps movie. They're the director. They can use me however they want. If they make me the director, good luck, and you're probably going to fail.”

“Your job as an executive is not to be loved. It's to help your people achieve more than what they believe it was possible.”

“This is a mistake a lot of executives do because they want to be loved. They want to be sometimes soft or too nice. You know, they don't want to stretch you.”

“Actually interviewing execs and very sort of more senior experienced people is really good for getting a feel for whether I would enjoy working with them. Can we brainstorm? Can we debate? Do I enjoy, you know, being with them? But I rarely find that folks lik…”

“If you're not using the technology yourself at least 10% of your time, then you're in the business of listening to other people tell you things that you don't know if it's true or not.”