omg omg omg 131 (aka biatch thread)
06-08-2012
, 10:49 PM
06-08-2012
, 10:50 PM
06-08-2012
, 10:52 PM
06-08-2012
, 10:54 PM
06-08-2012
, 10:56 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:01 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:04 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:06 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:11 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:12 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:13 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:13 PM
Quote:
This probably requires a healthy amount of paranoia. You might conceive of every board meeting as a trial. At best, the board is jury (though probably not of your peers). At worst, it is a mob and is looking to make you the sacrificial victim. Your job as founder is to survive the trial. You must make sure that you do not get executed. The boardroom is not the only place where things can go wrong, of course. But it is typically where things go wrong internally, and most fatal wounds come from internal, not external conflict.
Even something as seemingly innocuous as holding the title of CEO may actually be quite dangerous. Maybe you can figure out ways to minimize it. Augustus never said he was king. It was dangerous to be a king after Brutus killed Caesar. So Augustus was just the “first among equals.” Whether that equality was anything more than pure fiction, of course, is very questionable.
In October of 2000, things were pretty crazy at PayPal. The burn rate was $10 million/month. There were about 4.5 months of runway left. When I returned as CEO, it wasn’t all of a sudden. I was the Chairman and came back as the interim CEO. We went through a 6-7 month process of trying to find a permanent one. The one decent candidate that we found sort of didn’t work out. Things were going well, so the board agreed to have me be CEO. But the company was about to go public, so the board insisted that there be a Chief Operating Officer (COO) too. COO, of course, is code for the #1 replacement candidate for CEO—it’s like the Vice President in U.S. politics, only more adversarial. I was able to convince the board to make David Sacks COO, which was probably a good, safe move since David was perceived to be crazier than I was. Thinking carefully about these things can lead to powerful insurance policies against getting deposed or executed at trials board meetings.
Even something as seemingly innocuous as holding the title of CEO may actually be quite dangerous. Maybe you can figure out ways to minimize it. Augustus never said he was king. It was dangerous to be a king after Brutus killed Caesar. So Augustus was just the “first among equals.” Whether that equality was anything more than pure fiction, of course, is very questionable.
In October of 2000, things were pretty crazy at PayPal. The burn rate was $10 million/month. There were about 4.5 months of runway left. When I returned as CEO, it wasn’t all of a sudden. I was the Chairman and came back as the interim CEO. We went through a 6-7 month process of trying to find a permanent one. The one decent candidate that we found sort of didn’t work out. Things were going well, so the board agreed to have me be CEO. But the company was about to go public, so the board insisted that there be a Chief Operating Officer (COO) too. COO, of course, is code for the #1 replacement candidate for CEO—it’s like the Vice President in U.S. politics, only more adversarial. I was able to convince the board to make David Sacks COO, which was probably a good, safe move since David was perceived to be crazier than I was. Thinking carefully about these things can lead to powerful insurance policies against getting deposed or executed at trials board meetings.
06-08-2012
, 11:20 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:20 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:24 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:26 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:26 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:27 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:30 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:30 PM
06-08-2012
, 11:32 PM
