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CEOs Must Operate 36 Months Ahead While ICs Focus on Six

Dave McJannet · CEO Systems: 5 Lessons Learned from Scaling at Every Growth Phase with HashiCorp CEO Dave McJannet · Oct 11, 2022 · at 25:31

Dave McJannet, CEO of HashiCorp, explains his framework for managing organizational planning horizons at scale.

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“Management structures are about laddered time horizons. So if I'm an individual contributor sales rep, like we give them six month quotas, they are only focused on six months, I can assure you. If you're a developer, you're focused on the next six months, the next couple of quarters is what I have to do. The managers of those people, maybe they're thinking 12 months out. The leadership team that reports to me, they're thinking 18 months out, and my job is 36 months.”

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