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Leadership

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http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/11/14/111114fa_fact_gladwell Based on the biography, Malcolm Gladwell profiles Steve Jobs as a tweaker. Jobs had an amazing ability to take things that had been built or invented or designed already and tweak them into something far better than the original. Steve Jobs’s Real Genius : The New Yorker

Solid Rocks & Flowing Rivers Yet without a solid rock vantage point on the side of that river, it is too easy to be swept away by the flow of buzzwords and platforms and new this-or-that presented to us as -killers of that which came before. In reality, those of us who want to particpate in creating what the world (or our part of it) will be — and not just complain or react — will always be both in the river and on the bank, often at the same time. Dave and I share a constant amazement (bemusement or dismay might be better terms) whenever people become intoxicated over something they believe is new that we recognize as being built on a foundation that was created and set in motion decades ago, or longer. http://www.rexblog.com/2011/09/17/23564

http://bhorowitz.com/2011/10/08/nobody-cares/ Back in the bad old days when I was running Loudcloud, I thought to myself: how could I have possibly prepared for this? How could I know that half our customers would go out of business? How could I know that it would become impossible to raise money in the private markets? How could I have figured out that there would be 221 IPOs in 2000 and 19 in 2001? Could anybody expect me to achieve a reasonable outcome given those circumstances? As I was feely sorry for myself, I randomly watched an interview with famous football coach Bill Parcells. Nobody Cares

http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/27/startups-don%e2%80%99t-die-they-commit-suicide/#f16e2e893e2173e But, every time the “suicide” specter reared its head, I turned away and stayed the course. And every time, I would be vindicated. Arguments were worked out, problems solved, revenue generated, traction gained, buzz created. So I’ve struggled on, and every day we’ve continued to win the most important battle for any company: existence. Even more, we’ve been able to grow all the metrics that matter: users, revenue, and team. When startups commit suicide, often the root problem can be traced back to a lack of product traction — it’s rare to find people willingly quitting companies with exploding metrics. Startups Don’t Die, They Commit Suicide

What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology. http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/31/what%e2%80%99s-the-most-difficult-ceo-skill-managing-your-own-psychology/ Generally, someone doesn’t become CEOs unless she has a high sense of purpose and cares deeply about the work she does. In addition, a CEO must be accomplished enough or smart enough that people will want to work for her. Nobody sets out to be a bad CEO, run a dysfunctional organization, or create a massive bureaucracy that grinds her company to a screeching halt. Yet no CEO ever has a smooth path to a great company. Along the way, many things go wrong and all of them could have and should have been avoided.

Perhaps one reason people believe startup founders win by being smarter is that intelligence does matter more in technology startups than it used to in earlier types of companies. You probably do need to be a bit smarter to dominate Internet search than you had to be to dominate railroads or hotels or newspapers. And that's probably an ongoing trend. But even in the highest of high tech industries, success still depends more on determination than brains. http://www.paulgraham.com/determination.html The Anatomy of Determination

My Life as a CEO (and VC): Chief Psychologist And I’d add to the world of “lists of three” the old adage that many VCs quote about boards having only three roles: Raising money If you fail, you need to start all over. As you start to succeed, you will hear from people like me…’armchair quarterbacks’ . If you really succeed, everyone wants you to fail eventually so you need even thicker skin.” http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/09/08/my-life-as-a-ceo-and-vc-chief-psychologist/

Editor’s note : When venture capitalists invest in early stage startups, more than anything else they are investing in the founders of the company and their ability to lead their employees through the most improbable set of circumstances to take an idea from a germ to a real and profitable business. In this guest post, Ben Horowitz of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz explains the leadership traits he and his co-founder Marc Andreessen look for before they invest in a startup. SOme of their investments include Skype , Zynga , Factual , and RockMelt . Before becoming investing partners, Horowitz and Andreessen co-founded Opsware , which they sold to HP for $1.6 billion, and prior to that Horowitz was an executive at Netscape. At Andreessen Horowitz, we favor founders running the company. The reasons are many (and will be the topic of a future blog post). http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/14/notes-on-leadership-jobs-grove-campbel/ Notes on Leadership: Be Like Steve Jobs, . . . And Bill Campbell

http://www.allhatter.com/showthread.php/22872-My-Job-As-A-Pre-Launch-Startup-CEO-Was-To-Buy-Sandwiches My Job As A Pre-Launch Startup CEO Was To Buy Sandwiches Co-founders Sandy Jen, Elaine Wherry and I met every Wednesday night and all day every Sunday in an effort to get Meebo off the ground. We’d never meet in my apartment—it was always either at Sandy’s or Elaine’s. Why?

http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/28/why-we-prefer-founding-ceos/ Today, people would let Steve Jobs make such a radical turn at nearly any company because of the outcome he’s achieved at Apple. But remember that when Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, he was doing so as the co-founder and CEO of NeXT computer, a marginal computer workstation company which Apple purchased for less than $500M. Let’s just say he didn’t have the benefit of the doubt. What he did have: the founder’s courage to innovate despite the doubters. Innovator’s requirements – what does it take to find the product cycle? Why We Prefer Founding CEOs

There is some evidence that the most successful entrepreneurs are 40 or older . I don’t believe that. Or rather, it may be that statistically a startup founded by someone over 40 will be more likely to “win” financially than one started by a 20 year old. But nearly everything that is really disruptive is created by someone too young to know that they never had a chance of winning. Staying Credulous: On Not Letting Being 40 Get In The Way http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/27/staying-credulous-on-not-letting-being-40-get-in-the-way/