"After the first night of the 2008 SciFoo conference at Google, @gnat Torkington's twitter stream contained a gem: 'At SciFoo opening session. 300 people standing around networking. Meanwhile, Larry Page is quietly unpacking chairs at the back of the room.' (from memory, not exact)"
The CEO (or any leader)'s job is to make sure that whatever needs to be done, gets done. Sometimes, that means unpacking the chairs.
I'll share a story an interaction with a company that I worked heavily with while we were launching (this is a startup in a fairly niche, non-technical space. A smallish company with around 200 employees):
The "CEO": This guy had a large stake in the company. It was his baby, and while the "CEO" title (which I think gets way over applied) fits him, his official title is "managing partner". While we were in the process of build->launch, he was heavily involved in literally every single department. Not in a micro-managing way, in an "this needs to be done and here, I am going to help" way.
It would absolutely not have seemed strange to me, or anybody else, to see him out on a scissor lift with a hammer drill and some cables mounting something to the wall, if that's what was needed. When we did launch, some things went...wrong.
The night before we opened, he, as well as some of his friends, not even people employed by us, spent until almost-down doing "grunt" work. Dirty, tedious work moving huge heavy things around, and walking all over the place to get them.
That night he slept here (so did I)
The months leading up until that launch, and the months following it, he was here until well after dark because a lot of the people who had been hired were "green", and had no idea how to do their job yet. We were all figuring it out as we went.
The culture here at that time was addictive (and I wish we could get that feeling back of "making it up as we go". We've got everything pretty well dialed now). People throw the cliche of "we were a family" around pretty liberally, and I'm going to throw it around too.
We were a family.
We ate together, we drank together, and the "core" group always left together, meaning that nobody left until everybody's work was done. (including the managing partner, who absolutely didn't need to be, and was the one setting the example).
This has been an absolutely amazing company to work for. The culture here was, or is amazing.
The sad bit is that a lot of the culture that I fell in love with has faded. Yes, we're growing (rapidly! Awesome!), but we've more-or-less all hit our grooves. I know what I'm doing, the "CEO" does to, and there aren't really any scissors lifts or hammer drills left.
---
I guess I'll end the story with a question: how do I/we get back to that?
The meat of the post (very similar to this article actually):
One day, I walked by the kitchen and saw Cary washing the
dishes. “Huh” I thought, “The CEO is pitching in. Cool.”
I figured it must have been his turn or something, and
sort of forgot about it.
A week or so passed, and then it happened again. The
kitchen became a ginormous mess, and then one day,
there’s Cary, washing dishes. Then it happened again, and
again. Each time, he’d look up, and nod, then go back to
scrubbing dishes. One day, I walked by the kitchen and
noticed it was a huge mess. So I washed the dishes.
Being the CEO of the company isn’t about power,
authority, or glamour, it’s about washing the dishes when
nobody else will.
Be the CEO of the company. Take responsibility for things
that other people ignore. That’s the definition of
leadership, and if you make a habit of it, pretty soon
you'll be inspiring the people around you to do the same.
larry is a billionaire, his sense of things is different than ours, money is not an issue anymore for him, or at least not the same type of issue
it really piss me off, when we ask an employee who is being paid peanuts to show the same dedication to his work place as the ceo or the owner, and claim this is the ethical thing to do
I get very upset when junior employees try to keep me from doing the 'dirty work' I'm preparing to do or already doing.
I'm not sure where this whole nonsense of "people who lead can't get dirty or do menial work" comes from. If I had something more important to do for sure I would have delegated, but seeing that I didn't, ask why is this particular thing important or, at most, offer help. Don't tell me I shouldn't be doing this!
Context: I lead a team of 4. And by 'dirty work' I mean plugging up servers, doing maintenance on them, physical networking stuff, cleaning up debris after an installation, etc.
"In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility." Benjamin Franklin (emphasis mine, and added only semi-seriously: how do I discuss the humility I take pride in?).
[From a senior devil, instructing a junior in the temptation of a human:]
"Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, 'By jove! I'm being humble', and almost immediately pride--pride at his own humility--will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt-- and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don't try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humour and proportion in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed."
Pride is not the opposite of humility, arrogance is. Otherwise they would not be calling it "gay pride".
Pride is actually a good thing in many situations. It's good when father is proud of his children and almost always when someone has pride of someone else. It's good when employee takes pride in his/her work, as it's kind of proof of motivation. Could Olympic athlete enjoy victory fully without feeling little proud? I bet it's then mostly "I did it!" not "others suck!".
I think there is a basic feeling that can surface as pride or arrogance. Pride is the positive side of this. Usually no feeling is bad, it's what you make of it that can be bad.
It's important to remember that the CEO/founder role is where the buck stops. You're ultimately responsible for every mistake and fixing it. He's right that it's not glamorous. I think that if you're a sole founder you figure this out pretty quickly though. And as a rule of thumb: Always ignore Silicon Valley hype.
By the way: writing words in ALL CAPS, italicizing lots of things, and saying 'fucking' a lot made it painful to read that blog entry.
I typically italicize and bold things in an effort to break up the black/white monotony of my site but I'll keep the advice in mind and maybe go back and make some edits.
As for the 'fucking' I agree, it was actually pretty hard to write too. I grew up in a middle class family in the South most of whom would be appalled by the way this post was written(the language) but I thought it put some fire to the post, and the title as well.
I don't mind seeing The F Word from time to time in blog posts. It just expresses the frustration. It adds some kind of personal touch. Adds some... Naturalism? Obviously, using 'fuck' in every post (or especially post title) would not be appropriate or if you are some kind of role model/super-star who's posts are quoted in the press and etc.
Oh well maybe the fact that English is not my native language changes something.
So can we start a discussion on the use of those "no, no" type things. Is there any time they are worth using? (By the way, i really liked the title, I think this idea applies a lot of places outside of just CEOs)
Seriously, does anyone take anyone seriously who calls themselves CEO, CTO or CFO of a 5 man company? How about owner or founder. Maybe it's a cultural thing but here in the UK we'd definitely laugh at someone calling themselves that unless it was a company of a considerable size.
There was a similar phenomenon some years back when Linux (and other systems which could run on ordinary computers) started getting big. People thought running their own machine and/or having root was a big deal.
They had to be reminded that "you aren't really a sysadmin until you have some users". It seems the same would apply here.
I don't understand this phenomenon either. The 5-man company of all C-level executives. Or the software shop with only "Senior" developers. I suspect it might be peacocking in an attempt to make the company appear bigger than it really is, or to have structure in place when the company grows (see: premature optimization). In the case of the "senior developers", I imagine it might be to instill a kind of trust with the company's clients that their business is being handled by 'senior' employees. Either way, I think it's silly.
My boss (at a 3 person company) calls himself the president. I laugh at him for it, but ultimately I can't really criticize. Solo founder is a hard job, and if you're doing it why shouldnt you be able to call yourself whatever the hell you want? It's not like there are a whole lot of other perks, and what's the harm?
It's merely a difference in titles -- in the UK it's often 'managing director' or some variant. Here in North America, it's CEO. Size is irrelevant: it just so happens that is the title on my shares, thus I adhere to it.
I go by 'Chief Nerd Wrangler' nonetheless, as it's more appropriate of a job description. It still doesn't make it any less of a janitorial position.
I think it's more about the way you say/use it rather than the name you use. All those sayings would be equally (more or less) stupid/annoying if you replace C by (co-)founder.
> I want you to think about this, how many interns get to go sit down and talk to the FOUNDER of a company about its inter-workings every day? it just does not make sense”
I was thinking of having business cards printed up that said "CEO/CTO/CJO". When anyone asked me what the "J" stood for, I would of course answer "Janitorial".
Yes, some people do, which is why as the owner / founder / 'CXO' you should use whatever title's best for the situation you happen to be in at that moment.
A friend of mine is a multi-millionaire from running her own chain of nail salons. She is always going from store to store, checking on each store and if the store is busy, she'll be the first one taking the used foot water used for pedicures, sweeping, etc, doing whatever it takes to make sure the nail salonists can do their job, and also so that the customer is happy.
I heard an anecdote a while back. One day, the employees of a small company arrive at work to discover that someone has taken a shit on the floor. Who's going to clean it? The owner of course. He didn't hire anyone whose job is to clean shit up, he can't reasonably expect any of them to do it, so he has to do it.
At the last small company I worked for, I came in one morning to find the CFO plunging the toilet and mopping the floor where it had overflowed. I laughed and made some comment about dedication to the company, he laughed and said well we don't have a cleaning staff so someone's gotta do it.
Great comment. Funny and true. A CEO's job is also to clean up the metaphorical shit that gets dumped: I had one of those days today. Someone's got to do it.
Actually, Steve Jobs' most famous janitor analogy takes it in completely the opposite direction - CEOs aren't like janitors, he says, because janitors are allowed to have excuses when things fail, and CEOs aren't.
I work with a small pharmacy that only has 5-6 employees. Every time I go there to meet with the owner hes on his hands and knees vacuuming or cleaning something. The last time I saw him there he was calking a chair back together. His exact words were, "Back to basics."
In the UK we tend not to use CEO, we tend to use the term director or managing director.
In my day job I'm the technical director at Mandalorian. It's a cool job, but I'm generally pretty overloaded and usually underpaid. I don't do it for the cash or free time, that's for sure, but I do love making a difference for our customers. In a strange way I took this approach to 44Con. Everything I do at 44Con is about making sure the delegates have a good time and learn something. If we need to put leaflets on seats, I'm out there. If a delegate has a problem, I want to know so I can fix it.
A large part of startup success seems to be sales, but we shouldn't undersell the delivery and relationship aspects. If your customer is struggling to deal with you, then you're doing it wrong. If your customer has problems that you just can't fix, you're doing it wrong.
I'll be the first to admit I've failed on both parts on occasion, sometimes simultaneously, but it's our ability to learn from these things that sets the smaller guys apart from the bigger.
I'm the equivalent of a CEO at Mandalorian, but I'll proudly clean toilets if it makes for a better experience.
"You're not the CEO - You're the Janitor" Would have been a perfectly fitting title. The use of the metaphor 'Janitor' was enough. Honestly does the profanity really add to the impact of the message?
In the UK we tend not to use CEO, we tend to use the term director or managing director.
In my day job I'm the technical director at Mandalorian. It's a cool job, but I'm generally pretty overloaded and usually underpaid. I don't do it for the cash or free time that's for sure, but I do love making a difference for our customers. In a strange way I took this approach to my other thing, 44Con. Everything I do at 44Con is about making sure the delegates have a good time and learn something. If we need to put leaflets on seats, I'm out there. If a delegate has a problem, I want to know so I can fix it.
A large part of startup success seems to be sales, but we shouldn't undersell the delivery and relationship aspects. If your customer is struggling to deal with you, then you're doing it wrong. If your customer has problems that you just can't fix, you're doing it wrong. If you're sat in an ivory tower and refuse to get out and fix it when these things happen then you're doing it wrong.
I'll be the first to admit I've failed on all parts on occasion, sometimes simultaneously, but it's our ability to learn from these things that sets the smaller guys apart from the bigger ones. Startups can make small mistakes, the established companies make far bigger ones without noticing.
I'm the equivalent of a CEO at Mandalorian, but I'll proudly clean toilets if it makes for a better experience for our customers. Hoops? I live to jump through them, and I expect that from everyone I work with.
My company went through TechStars this Spring and on Friday closed a respectable seed round. On Sunday I was scrubbing the floor in our office.
Being a startup CEO is glamorous only in the movies or in overly hyped bits and pieces. It doesn't completely suck, it's awesome at times and on average is more interesting than anything else I've done. But worthy of sharing intimate details as if I'm some amazingly interesting creature to be worshiped and followed? Please.
Good post Zach. In fact, even though the CEO is company leader and the vision, if you got a startup of five I'd say everybody's the janitor! Titles mean very little in the early days when you're trying to launch a product. Everybody needs to be marketing, sales, product development, finance and legal - and of course the janitor crew. btw, good content outweighs format any day...
However, if you spend a huge chunk of your time as a CEO (or founder/owner/whatever) performing a single task (or multiple rudimentary tasks) that could be performed better and more efficiently by a hired employee instead of using your experience to grow and propel the company, then you're doing something wrong.
This article reminds me a bit of 'the parable of the silver bowls:' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjzqO6UOPFQ -- regardless of the size of the organization, its leaders are the ones who must deal with the stuff no one else can or wants to tackle.
[+] [-] michael_nielsen|13 years ago|reply
"After the first night of the 2008 SciFoo conference at Google, @gnat Torkington's twitter stream contained a gem: 'At SciFoo opening session. 300 people standing around networking. Meanwhile, Larry Page is quietly unpacking chairs at the back of the room.' (from memory, not exact)"
The CEO (or any leader)'s job is to make sure that whatever needs to be done, gets done. Sometimes, that means unpacking the chairs.
[+] [-] blhack|13 years ago|reply
The "CEO": This guy had a large stake in the company. It was his baby, and while the "CEO" title (which I think gets way over applied) fits him, his official title is "managing partner". While we were in the process of build->launch, he was heavily involved in literally every single department. Not in a micro-managing way, in an "this needs to be done and here, I am going to help" way.
It would absolutely not have seemed strange to me, or anybody else, to see him out on a scissor lift with a hammer drill and some cables mounting something to the wall, if that's what was needed. When we did launch, some things went...wrong.
The night before we opened, he, as well as some of his friends, not even people employed by us, spent until almost-down doing "grunt" work. Dirty, tedious work moving huge heavy things around, and walking all over the place to get them.
That night he slept here (so did I)
The months leading up until that launch, and the months following it, he was here until well after dark because a lot of the people who had been hired were "green", and had no idea how to do their job yet. We were all figuring it out as we went.
The culture here at that time was addictive (and I wish we could get that feeling back of "making it up as we go". We've got everything pretty well dialed now). People throw the cliche of "we were a family" around pretty liberally, and I'm going to throw it around too.
We were a family.
We ate together, we drank together, and the "core" group always left together, meaning that nobody left until everybody's work was done. (including the managing partner, who absolutely didn't need to be, and was the one setting the example).
This has been an absolutely amazing company to work for. The culture here was, or is amazing.
The sad bit is that a lot of the culture that I fell in love with has faded. Yes, we're growing (rapidly! Awesome!), but we've more-or-less all hit our grooves. I know what I'm doing, the "CEO" does to, and there aren't really any scissors lifts or hammer drills left.
---
I guess I'll end the story with a question: how do I/we get back to that?
[+] [-] thebigshane|13 years ago|reply
The meat of the post (very similar to this article actually):
[+] [-] systems|13 years ago|reply
it really piss me off, when we ask an employee who is being paid peanuts to show the same dedication to his work place as the ceo or the owner, and claim this is the ethical thing to do
[+] [-] koide|13 years ago|reply
I'm not sure where this whole nonsense of "people who lead can't get dirty or do menial work" comes from. If I had something more important to do for sure I would have delegated, but seeing that I didn't, ask why is this particular thing important or, at most, offer help. Don't tell me I shouldn't be doing this!
Context: I lead a team of 4. And by 'dirty work' I mean plugging up servers, doing maintenance on them, physical networking stuff, cleaning up debris after an installation, etc.
[+] [-] 16s|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] faucet|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] kevinalexbrown|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chernevik|13 years ago|reply
"Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, 'By jove! I'm being humble', and almost immediately pride--pride at his own humility--will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt-- and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don't try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humour and proportion in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed."
"Screwtape Letters", C.S. Lewis
[+] [-] nosse|13 years ago|reply
Pride is actually a good thing in many situations. It's good when father is proud of his children and almost always when someone has pride of someone else. It's good when employee takes pride in his/her work, as it's kind of proof of motivation. Could Olympic athlete enjoy victory fully without feeling little proud? I bet it's then mostly "I did it!" not "others suck!".
I think there is a basic feeling that can surface as pride or arrogance. Pride is the positive side of this. Usually no feeling is bad, it's what you make of it that can be bad.
[+] [-] sp332|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SatvikBeri|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] coderdude|13 years ago|reply
By the way: writing words in ALL CAPS, italicizing lots of things, and saying 'fucking' a lot made it painful to read that blog entry.
[+] [-] zbruhnke|13 years ago|reply
I typically italicize and bold things in an effort to break up the black/white monotony of my site but I'll keep the advice in mind and maybe go back and make some edits.
As for the 'fucking' I agree, it was actually pretty hard to write too. I grew up in a middle class family in the South most of whom would be appalled by the way this post was written(the language) but I thought it put some fire to the post, and the title as well.
[+] [-] gedrap|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnnyjustice|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moron|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smiler|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rachelbythebay|13 years ago|reply
They had to be reminded that "you aren't really a sysadmin until you have some users". It seems the same would apply here.
[+] [-] caseyohara|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notatoad|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidandgoliath|13 years ago|reply
I go by 'Chief Nerd Wrangler' nonetheless, as it's more appropriate of a job description. It still doesn't make it any less of a janitorial position.
[+] [-] gedrap|13 years ago|reply
> I want you to think about this, how many interns get to go sit down and talk to the FOUNDER of a company about its inter-workings every day? it just does not make sense”
[+] [-] ScottBurson|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gyardley|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] steve8918|13 years ago|reply
She deserves every penny of her wealth.
[+] [-] pbiggar|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkahn|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MaxGabriel|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zbruhnke|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielRibeiro|13 years ago|reply
Steve Jobs: (what the CEO does) I don't know. Head janitor?
[1] http://hot-facts.blogspot.com/2011/10/facts-about-steve-jobs...
[+] [-] objclxt|13 years ago|reply
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-05-07/tech/30043798...
[+] [-] rickdale|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _b8r0|13 years ago|reply
In my day job I'm the technical director at Mandalorian. It's a cool job, but I'm generally pretty overloaded and usually underpaid. I don't do it for the cash or free time, that's for sure, but I do love making a difference for our customers. In a strange way I took this approach to 44Con. Everything I do at 44Con is about making sure the delegates have a good time and learn something. If we need to put leaflets on seats, I'm out there. If a delegate has a problem, I want to know so I can fix it.
A large part of startup success seems to be sales, but we shouldn't undersell the delivery and relationship aspects. If your customer is struggling to deal with you, then you're doing it wrong. If your customer has problems that you just can't fix, you're doing it wrong.
I'll be the first to admit I've failed on both parts on occasion, sometimes simultaneously, but it's our ability to learn from these things that sets the smaller guys apart from the bigger.
I'm the equivalent of a CEO at Mandalorian, but I'll proudly clean toilets if it makes for a better experience.
[+] [-] adrianhoward|13 years ago|reply
The CEO attempted to remove himself from the washing up rota in the kitchen when a new employee came on board.
At this point I knew the company was doomed :-)
[+] [-] tezza|13 years ago|reply
Occassionally the flat sewerage backs up and effluent pours into the cafe basement.
My Wife as the owner is the one there ungumming the pipes until a plumber can be hailed.
[+] [-] andrewfelix|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _b8r0|13 years ago|reply
In my day job I'm the technical director at Mandalorian. It's a cool job, but I'm generally pretty overloaded and usually underpaid. I don't do it for the cash or free time that's for sure, but I do love making a difference for our customers. In a strange way I took this approach to my other thing, 44Con. Everything I do at 44Con is about making sure the delegates have a good time and learn something. If we need to put leaflets on seats, I'm out there. If a delegate has a problem, I want to know so I can fix it.
A large part of startup success seems to be sales, but we shouldn't undersell the delivery and relationship aspects. If your customer is struggling to deal with you, then you're doing it wrong. If your customer has problems that you just can't fix, you're doing it wrong. If you're sat in an ivory tower and refuse to get out and fix it when these things happen then you're doing it wrong.
I'll be the first to admit I've failed on all parts on occasion, sometimes simultaneously, but it's our ability to learn from these things that sets the smaller guys apart from the bigger ones. Startups can make small mistakes, the established companies make far bigger ones without noticing.
I'm the equivalent of a CEO at Mandalorian, but I'll proudly clean toilets if it makes for a better experience for our customers. Hoops? I live to jump through them, and I expect that from everyone I work with.
[+] [-] dpe82|13 years ago|reply
Being a startup CEO is glamorous only in the movies or in overly hyped bits and pieces. It doesn't completely suck, it's awesome at times and on average is more interesting than anything else I've done. But worthy of sharing intimate details as if I'm some amazingly interesting creature to be worshiped and followed? Please.
Customers make a successful company, not CEOs.
[+] [-] tdorrance|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peapicker|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vacri|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomjen3|13 years ago|reply
Fuck is a useful word.
[+] [-] jff|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guynamedloren|13 years ago|reply
However, if you spend a huge chunk of your time as a CEO (or founder/owner/whatever) performing a single task (or multiple rudimentary tasks) that could be performed better and more efficiently by a hired employee instead of using your experience to grow and propel the company, then you're doing something wrong.
[+] [-] cs702|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swlkr|13 years ago|reply
At my last job I took out the trash when it needed to be taken out and I was a software engineer, that's just common courtesy.
Being a CEO would be an upgrade for me in every way no matter how many articles swear that it's the worst thing in the world.