Akhund: A CEO's Key Role Is Serving as an Emotional Leveling Function
Imad Akhund · Ignoring Silicon Valley advice to build a $3B fintech unicorn (Mercury) · Aug 6, 2025 · at 58:31
Imad Akhund, CEO and co-founder of Mercury, reflects on leadership psychology during acute startup crises and euphoric highs.
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“I think the most important thing as a CEO, especially, is to be, like, a leveling function. Actually, like, there's various parts to this, right? As an entrepreneur in general, like, yeah, either shit is amazing or shit is, like, awful, right? Like, it's, like, And like, you have to, whenever like things are amazing, you have to like go like, okay, you know, I'm not going to like get stuck in that euphoria. I just have to execute. And when things are awful, you have to be optimistic.”
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