
The most difficult CEO skill: managing your own psychology - bfe
http://bhorowitz.com/2011/04/01/what%e2%80%99s-the-most-difficult-ceo-skill-managing-your-own-psychology/
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shadowsun7
Fred Wilson also linked to this, saying:

 _Every once in a while I come across a blog post that so totally nails
something and I am reminded why professionals blogging about their craft is
such an important development in the world of media._

Read this. I found it inspiring. But it also scared the shit out of me, and
made me wonder at the few people who've made it as CEO.

PS: Notice how all the default pronouns in a Ben Horowitz post are female? I
find that totally awesome.

~~~
roel_v
"PS: Notice how all the default pronouns in a Ben Horowitz post are female? I
find that totally awesome."

I found it mostly distracting. I'm as progressive as it comes in this regard,
but please - "separate the women from the girls"?

~~~
alabut
It's not only distracting but unnecessary. The English language has a
perfectly usable way to avoid gender-specific pronouns: just use the plural.
"A good CEO knows his/her values" becomes "a good CEO knows their values".

~~~
ghshephard
Or drop the gender altogether: "A good CEO knows their values." Grammar cops
hate the use of the collective pronoun where a singular would be more correct,
but I see it used often enough that it's slowly working it's way into the
English language.

In Ben's case, he's making a political statement, so the use of "her" is
appropriate in that instance though.

~~~
ZoFreX
> it's slowly working it's way into the English language

It's actually been in English for a pretty long time, there is plenty of
precedent. The people that complain loudest about grammar "mistakes" are often
the least equipped to talk about them.

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staunch
To me the most important line is something I realized after working in a
decently run 200 person company and then moving to a really well run 30 person
company many years ago.

> _"If you manage a team of 10 people, it’s quite possible to do so with very
> few mistakes or bad behaviors."_

His only mistake is thinking that 10 people is the limit. I think with some
effort you can probably get to 30-40-50 people and still run it "with very few
mistakes or bad behaviors."

To me that's the ideal. There are _very_ few things a really well motivated,
hard working, talented team of 50 can't do that a mixed-competence,
unmotivated, bureaucratic team of 1000 can do.

Most people grow their companies to thousands of people without really
thinking about it, because that's historically what you're supposed to do.

Not enough companies try to be small and "perfect".

~~~
apike
_I think with some effort you can probably get to 30-40-50 people and still
run it "with very few mistakes or bad behaviors."_

No.

The reason 10 people can work like magic is that they all report to you. There
are no middle managers, just people who get things done, plus one person to
coordinate. Everybody knows what everybody else is doing, and the
communication path is only one level.

The upper bound for this type of company is how many people you can manage
personally. You can not manage 30 people, and you probably can't manage 20.
Once you need to add a layer of managers under you who aren't actually getting
shit done, the entire dynamic changes.

~~~
staunch
Like I said, I've experienced 30 done very effectively, so I know it certainly
can be done to that point. In that case it was one head honcho and two
lieutenants directly managing the two sides of the business.

Things might start to get shaky at 50, but I seriously doubt it's impossible.

~~~
apike
For sure. I've seen 30 done effectively, and I've seen 49,000 done
effectively, relatively speaking. Still, from the CEO's perspective there's
something fundamentally different about managing front-line workers and
managing managers.

~~~
staunch
My definition of "effectively" in this context is the above quote "with very
few mistakes or bad behaviors." No one would claim any 49,000 person company
is run under that definition, so I don't know why you mention it.

As for how it feels to the CEO I don't think you're right. The company I had
experience with was run as a triumvirate with one slightly more powerful
member. All three knew everything that was going on and had a hand in it, but
two of them were experts in different areas and one was a generalist and
overall vision-setter.

The CEO spent probably 80% of his time working on real projects with
individuals and teams and 20% coordinating with his junior triumvirs.

He certainly was not was reduced to sitting in his office funneling orders
through two people all day.

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petervandijck
For fuck sake. This glorifying of CEO's (and entrepreneurs) is making me sick.
Sure, it's hard being a CEO. It's hard being a teacher. It's hard being a
parent. Stop believing you're so special.

"Jason was the one who had to live with the consequences." -> the people being
fired have to live with the consequences. Jason only has to live with making
the decision, which is much easier. Jeez.

Grump.

~~~
lionhearted
> This glorifying of CEO's (and entrepreneurs) is making me sick. Sure, it's
> hard being a CEO. It's hard being a teacher. It's hard being a parent. Stop
> believing you're so special.

They're different kinds of hard, and they're also all worth thinking about.
There's many places that articles and discussions are happening on being a
better teacher or being a better parent too.

And this blog post (1) isn't gushing, and (2) has a lot of truth in it. I'm
staying with a friend of mine in China who left IBM to start his own company.
He's experiencing the _whoa-holy-shit-I'm-the-guy-responsible_ feeling.

There really aren't too many things similar to it - being the final
decisionmaker is its own kind of stress and neurosis. If things screw up,
_it's your fault alone and you have to live with that_. In theory, that's true
for everyone. In practice, there's a huge difference between being employed or
contracted, and running your own shop or self-employed. The psychology of it
is really, tangibly different - that's not glorification, that's just the
facts here.

> the people being fired have to live with the consequences. Jason only has to
> live with making the decision, which is much easier. Jeez.

Have you ever recruited anyone to work for you, had it not work out, and had
to let them go? It's one of the hardest, most gut-wrenching things you'll ever
have to do. You asked someone to trust you, _and you were wrong and someone
else is going to suffer for it... and you have to pull the trigger now_. Ask
anyone who has had to lay off someone they recruited and brought into the
company - it's miserably awful.

Agreed it's also bad for employees to be let go, but writing it off as "much
easier" to say to someone, "I'm sorry, I made the wrong decision and you have
to suffer for it"... I don't know, I'm guessing you've never had to do it.
Very few things weigh so heavily on your conscience.

~~~
ghshephard
"Ask anyone who has had to lay off someone they recruited and brought into the
company - it's miserably awful." - In particular, I recall when Ben Horowitz
had to do that to about 200+ people in 2001, some of whom he had hired away
from other jobs to come work at Loudcloud just a few months earlier. I'm
trying to recall if I've ever seen anyone suffer as much as he did when he met
with the employees to explain what was happening, and why he had to do it.

It was a case of survival, and I did not envy him for a second. I think he
probably carries the emotional scars of that moment to this day.

------
rahooligan
I am grateful to Ben for making such posts. They have the potential to save me
months of misdirection.

Best parts:

” Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs
point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or
a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be
remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say: “I didn’t quit.”

and

"Focus on the road not the wall—When they train racecar drivers, one of the
first lessons is when you are going around a curve at 200 MPH, do not focus on
the wall; focus on the road. If you focus on the wall, you will drive right
into it. If you focus on the road, you will follow the road. Running a company
is like that."

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jkuria
Common man! You don't have to be so overly politically correct. It's ok to say
"choices like these separate the boys from the men"! The feminine version just
doesn't capture the essence!

~~~
bentoner
I doubt he uses female pronouns to be politically correct: rather, he's doing
it to address the very real problem of lack of women in tech startups.

~~~
bfe
Ben and his partner Marc Andreessen have been doing this for a long time; not
coincidentally, Marc co-founded Ning with Gina Bianchini as the CEO.

~~~
staunch
Which I thought really cool, then I was disappointed when I read that
Andreessen is an ex-boyfriend of Bianchini's. I can't help but feel that
taints the coolness of it and reinforces a negative stereotype.

~~~
qeorge
Strong disagree. I'd guess that most successful cofounding teams have a prior,
personal relationship (platonic or otherwise). I know the fact that my
cofounder and I have been close friends for > 20 years has been crucial to our
success, and pg has cited the strength of the founders' friendship as a
deciding factor for YC interviews.

So, the fact that Mr. Andressen and Ms. Bianchini have a prior relationship is
unsurprising. To imply their romantic past conferred her this opportunity, in
a way that a platonic friendship would not have, is dangerously close to
calling her a whore.

(PS: I'm sorry to jump on you, and I empathize with your sentiment. But its
one of those built in stereotypes that we need to actively fight within
ourselves.)

~~~
staunch
If they were two professional equals starting a company as co-founders I
wouldn't think anything negative about it.

It's the fact that Andreessen (arguably #1 guy in Silicon Valley) funded the
company with his money and connections and then gave her the CEO job. He was
in a position of power and conferred a benefit to a friend and former lover.

It's kind of like the guy that goes to work at his father's company as the
CEO. Even if he warrants the appointment it's hard to feel the same level of
respect (at least for me).

Trust me though, I do feel conflicted and guilty for thinking this. The
problem is I can't tell which kind of cultural baggage I'm exhibiting: sexism
or political correctness.

------
RiderOfGiraffes
Dup:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2391735>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2391744>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2391756>

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Yes, but avoiding the Techcrunch blogspam is not a bad thing.

------
felix0702
>"...when you don’t actually know what you are doing..." This is where CEO's
psychology starts melting down.

Uncertainty leads to fear and fear leads to panic. It's like driving a car
blindly. What a CEO needs is a light which points to a right direction,
whether this direction is really right or wrong is another topic.)

This is just my own view. All uncertainties can be grouped into two
categories: Vision and Culture.

Vision is like a guiding system, it tells your customers (consumer, employee,
and investor) where your company is going. Culture is like an internal machine
which take your company to where you want to go. When these two things are
defined and guidelines are created, uncertainties become clear. It's because
now you have two groups of high-level guidelines to tell whether you should
handle an uncertainty seriously or not.

However, even your company have a good vision and great culture, you will
still feel uncomfortable. It's the feel like driving at 200 MPH when you are
used to drive at 70 MPH. Experiences can certainly help to ease this feeling
when you gradually increase driving speed.

The other way is to build a data-driven company from beginning. This is like
flying a jet plane which you do not visual see what's going on outside, but
rather you see if you are doing well through dashboard panels. But at least a
CEO must learn and know what information is important in order to have a
meaningful dashboard. This is getting too long. Any feedback on my opinion is
welcome.

------
iuguy
It's like the author just drilled into my mind and started pulling things out.
I continually question every decision I make, relying on as much data as I
can, but ultimately the buck stops with me, and if you don't find that
prospect terrifying, then you're probably not of the right mind to run a
company.

~~~
Hoff
Some perspective, please?

If it's not involving building collapses or motor vehicle collisions or bomb
blasts or wildfires or other forms of mayhem, and if the decision doesn't
involve significant risk of or result in death or serious personal injury,
then "terrifying" probably isn't right word.

Bankruptcy is not death. Dead is dead.

Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, Repeat, or however you prefer to think of the
decision-making process.

Make your decisions with the best possible considerations and information that
you have available, work to get the best and the smartest folks around you and
with you, and don't undermine yourself with second-guessing your own
decisions.

And if you're going to be involved in any serious forms of mayhem at all
regularly, sure, it can get scary, but you train for it, equip for it, and you
make the best available decisions and the perform the best triage you can
manage. Observe, Orient, Decide, Act, Repeat.

------
robg
I'd add exercise, sleep, and nutrition. A healthy body helps keep a healthy
mind.

------
bfe
I found this insightful for anyone who has lots of urgent and important tasks
to get done and decisions to make and lots of people to keep happy, yet who
also has many other personally conceived projects to pursue that no one else
is going to follow up on. There's a real skill to balancing getting everything
done you need to, as well as can be done, while still not expending all your
efforts and mental energy on established projects and on reacting to external
events, and instead reserving some of your time and energy for new projects;
or, not letting day-to-day operational competence squeeze out meaningful
pursuit of vision.

------
jc123
I assume Ben is writing about his experience at Loudcloud and it seems he has
a glaring omission about his cofounders (Tim Howes, In Sik Rhee, in addition
to Andreessen). Where's the story about when he managed his ego when he had
disagreements with them? Or a story/acknowledgment about his cofounders
assisting him with psychological support?

I am not disagreeing with the weight on the CEO and overall it was a thought
provoking post. But it only scratched the surface and did not write enough
about his own experience (and management of his psychology). Incidentally,
those were the 2 parts I found most insightful: 1\. "The new customers didn’t
save us, but we figured out another way to survive and ultimately succeed. The
key to getting to the right outcome was to keep from getting married to either
the positive or the dark narrative." 2\. "Get it out of your head and onto
paper"

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nickpinkston
I can't up-vote this enough. The whole final-ness of being where the buck
stops is certainly a little overwhelming - but it also is a great feeling when
things go great. I forget who said: "The good is never as good you think, and
the bad is never as bad".

The mental game of entrepreneurship is certainly the biggest component.

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bo_Olean
>>Get it out of your head and onto paper.

 _I wrote down a detailed explanation of my logic. The process of writing that
document separated me from my own psychology and enabled me to make the
decision swiftly._

Agreed. To the HN readers who type things often in computer, i would suggest
to pour out with a pen onto paper next time, this is healer!

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klbarry
This is a truly amazing article, I've never seen these issues from this
perspective.

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PetoVera_Matt
Enjoyed this post a lot, thanks for writing it, Ben.

