“I wouldn't focus early on, on domain expertise or whatever. I'd focus on trying to find somebody who's been an experienced operating guy, or person, woman and who really can add to the evolution, if you will, of your business model. Not so much domain expertise or representing a customer community or anything else. Those come in later. I think you want a more generalist who's got a lot of operating experience up front.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Dan Warmenhoven
Insight
Warmenhoven: Co-founders and direct reports must be excluded from board executive sessions
“Since all those issues are performance related, it's really awkward to have one of the CEOs direct reports in the room. And you find a lot of board structures that start off with a CEO and a technical founder or whatever, a co-founder. Get them off. Get them o…”
Dan WarmenhovenJan 2, 2019▶ 24:57a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
Insight
Warmenhoven: Boards exist for company success, not CEO personal development
“The board is not there to help you be successful. The board is there to help the company be successful. You are expendable. Just keep that in mind. The amount of time you should spend on your personal development in a board meeting is zero.”
Dan WarmenhovenJan 2, 2019▶ 39:20a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
Opinion
Warmenhoven: Adding more than one outside director before Series B is excessive
“Any more than one outsider until you get to Series B is maybe too many mouths to feed.”
Dan WarmenhovenJan 2, 2019▶ 4:21a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
Insight
Warmenhoven: Former operators on boards effectively mediate between competing VCs
“Having somebody who's actually been an operating guy, et cetera, I think has got a lot of value, and they also can be a mediary between the various venture capitalists and ways that a CEO can't, right?”
Dan WarmenhovenJan 2, 2019▶ 4:31a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
Insight
Warmenhoven: Best board meetings minimize routine updates to discuss strategic issues
“I find the best meetings are those which are very succinct around mundane, And leave lots of time for the meaty subjects.”
Dan WarmenhovenJan 2, 2019▶ 16:13a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
Insight
Warmenhoven: The ideal public company board size is exactly eight directors
“Once you're public, I would guess it's probably about eight, the CEO plus seven others. I mean, you gotta have financial experts and comp committees and all the rest of that stuff, but any more than eight is just, I mean, it's just too many.”
Dan WarmenhovenJan 2, 2019▶ 29:26a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
Made with StarZero
Turn any episode into a week of clips.
This entire site, over 1,000 episodes transcribed, diarized, checked and made playable,
runs on the StarZero media pipeline. Drop in your own episode and the podcast clipper finds the
moments worth sharing, cuts them, captions them, and reframes them for every feed.
We use essential cookies to make the site work. With your permission we
also use analytics cookies (Google Analytics and Mixpanel) to understand
usage and improve StarZero. See our Cookie Policy.