Spencer Rascoff, former CEO of Zillow, discusses board composition and the value of domain-specific directors during an a16z podcast panel on board management.
“It's more that in the boardroom, It keeps the conversation on that topic much more honest, and it forces the management team to become much more prepared, because the, they know they can't snow the director on that particular topic. Maybe they can snow the other couple of directors, because they're, you know, whatever, they're sort of at 10,000 feet or 50,000 feet, and they don't really understand the particular area. But at least there's one person in the room that can call bullshit on, you know, that subject area.”
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More from Spencer Rascoff
Insight
Rascoff: Early-stage VCs were more helpful than Fortune 500 CEOs in 2008
“I'm thinking back to 2008 when, you know, the world came to an end. The directors that were most helpful to us working through that were the VCs that had a lot of early stage experience and had seen a lot of other companies die. It wasn't the marquee, you know…”
Spencer RascoffJan 2, 2019▶ 44:19a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
Disclosure
Rascoff: Zillow replaced board PowerPoint decks with Amazon-style written memos
“We switched about a year ago to a memo system after Bezos and Amazon's model of kind of no PowerPoint for one or two meetings in a row.”
Spencer RascoffJan 2, 2019▶ 21:34a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
Insight
Rascoff: Board members dialing in via phone are effectively useless
“I hate when I have to dial into a, to a board call, and I hate when people are on the phone. I just think it, You know, we all know they're only half paying attention. We all know that, you know, it's hard for them to hear, and papers are shuffling and whateve…”
Spencer RascoffJan 2, 2019▶ 27:56a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
Insight
Rascoff: VC firm brand matters far less than individual board partner
“And don't just think about the Brand of the VC. Because once the check clears, that doesn't really matter that much. What matters is who's in the boardroom for the next 10 years.”
Spencer RascoffJan 2, 2019▶ 12:46a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
Insight
Rascoff: Inviting executives to board meetings creates a hard-to-reverse precedent
“Once you start inviting executives to board meetings, it's really hard to get them out.”
Spencer RascoffJan 2, 2019▶ 22:48a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
Insight
Rascoff: Bad news must be shared before board meetings to avoid surprises
“The biggest sign of a bad board meeting is one where there's, there are a lot of surprises. Like, if you've got bad news to share, for example, you want to share it ahead of time, and you want to make sure that you know, bad news should travel faster than good…”
Spencer RascoffJan 2, 2019▶ 28:16a16z Podcast | How to Lead, Not Manage Your Board
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