Continuations

One of the great privileges of being in venture capital is the ability to observe many CEOs in action – not just at a distance, but close up. One of the lessons I have learned from that is that there are different ways to be effective as a CEO and that very different personalities can make for effective CEOs. I have observed effective CEOs who are technologists and others who are top sales people; CEOs who are methodical and others who are inspirational. You get the idea. But all the effectiv...

One of the things that’s particularly difficult in being a startup board member is striking the right balance between supporting a founder CEO and listening to other people from the organization. It is possible to err on either side – undermining a CEO’s leadership by giving too much weight to complaints; or ignoring/not knowing about complaints for too long so that actual problems become very hard to fix. I have personally made both mistakes as a director! The first step in trying to get thi...