Why should you be CEO?
Radical musings on why you have to be the leader of your company.
I think [Y] should be the CEO, and Eddie you should be CTO.
I remember feeling very flustered upon hearing those words by a venture capitalist when we were discussing our company in his office. I could feel my blood boiling and sense my breathing speeding. I was thinking inside: How dare you? Do you even know anything about me?
It was hard to regain my composure. Eventually I managed to do so, and first asked the question why, to which he replied that it seemed to be a better fit given my background.
The issue I believe stemmed from the fact that I had not spent time building much rapport with this individual. I did a lot of observing and carefully answering his questions in his office, without revealing much about me. I was behaving in a somewhat cagey manner because I personally didn’t naturally connect with this person. The vibe wasn’t there, and I did not make an effort to present my more authentic self to him. Of course he was going to be unaware of who I was.
He was unaware of my background, which as a T-shaped person spanned software engineering, product management, and AI. He was unaware of the fact that I had been doing all the admin/finance tasks, and most of the marketing. Most importantly, he was unaware of the fact that I did the recruiting of initial team members and laid out the vision for the company.
In a nutshell, I felt I was the best equipped to lead a company that was creating a strong product that was powered with great tech. I also had the most credibility and the network to attract a great team. Thinking back, those things were obvious to me, but I should have marketed myself much better.
Now those are all good, logical reasons to lay a claim on the CEO role. But I believe the real reason is much simpler than these points above. It is at the same time much deeper than these points. It is more philosophical and at the same time more visceral than these points.
I am the one who wants to win the most.
I am the one who will fight the hardest and longest to do whatever it takes to win.
It may make some people uncomfortable reading the above, but this is my true self. And I am staying true to myself and my words.
In fact, I recently read a very powerful tweet by Amjad Masad - the inspiring CEO of Replit - that captures this mindset.
Clearly I am not the only crazy person here who wants to win :).
What about you - why should you be CEO?
Thanks for reading this post! I share my learnings and progress while building my startup EnVsion! EnVsion is the simplest user research platform built for video. We help UX Researchers save time analysing and sharing insights from user interview videos with their team to help them build great products.
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