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Why You, The CEO, Are The Most Important Person In Your Startup
“The engine that makes an Analog IC company go is a great VP Engineering or CTO,” I said to Dave, the VC partner I was working with when I was incubating my startup as an EIR (Entrepreneur in Residence) at a VC fund in San Francisco. Then I continued, “Without a great VP Engineering we will not be able to recruit a great team of engineers.”
So with those sage words I went and recruited “John” to be our cofounder, VP Engineering. And John was everything I thought he would be:
- John was a brilliant engineer, and…
- John had a strong technical vision for our company, and…
- John was able to recruit a strong team around him.
There you have it. That’s the end of the story, right? Well, John had one other quality that I was an absolute non-starter in a great cofounder VP Engineering:
John didn’t have a clue, not one, about how to build a company. And, worse yet, John thought he knew everything about building a company.
In fact, John told me so when he quit a few months later. John said, “I know better than you how to build a business.”
Imagine being that blind to your weaknesses? Imagine having someone like John as your key technical person? Obviously John did me a big favor when he quit.
