A Quote by Andrew Mason

Am I as experienced, or mature, or smart as others CEOs? No probably not, but there's something, I think, very useful about having a founder as the CEO.

Andrew Mason

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About Am CEO CEOs Experienced Founder Having Mature Others Smart Something Think Useful Very

Quote Author

Andrew Mason
American - Businessman

The thing that's confusing for investors is that founders don't know how to be CEO. I didn't know how to do the job when I was a CEO. Founder CEOs don't know how to be CEOs, but it doesn't mean they can't learn. The question is... can the founder learn that job and can they tolerate all mistakes they will make doing it?

Ben Horowitz

I think there's real value in having a founder CEO. Obviously, I'm biased, but I'm driven by a purpose and a mission and a vision, not just profits.

Julia Hartz

You meet with a CEO or founder. You talk about sales, engineering, product management and give some ideas or suggestions. And the founder quickly understands that you really can help them both operationally and from a strategic standpoint.

Douglas Leone

The best way to honor someone who has said something smart and useful is to say something back that is smart and useful. The other way to honor them is to go do something with what you learned.

Seth

You don't think, when you start a company as the founding CEO, that if your venture actually works, you end up with three jobs: founder, CEO, and chair of the board. The first eight years at Bonobos, I have learned a lot about the tension between the first two. It didn't even occur to me that I had the third job until much later.

Andy Dunn

And I'm comfortable being who I am, so I think a lot of people who take over from a founder worry about how they compare to the founder; I worry about doing the best I can.

Sanjay Kumar

Another thing I've observed is how critical the role of the CEO is when a technology truly is disruptive. In looking back on companies that have successfully launched independent disruptive business units, the CEO always had a foot in both camps. Never have they succeeded when they spin something off in order to get it off the CEO's agenda. The CEOs that did this had extraordinary personal self-confidence, and almost always they were the founders of the companies.

Clayton Christensen

I think to some degree one of the strengths of the high tech industry is that people are actually willing to tell you things. When I went to Novell, I didn't know how to be a CEO, so I went in and I called all sorts of CEOs I knew. I called in a favor. I wanted to come by and listen to them tell me what it's like to be a CEO.

Eric Schmidt

I think that's the responsibility of the CEO and the CEOs below me: to make sure that we're constantly putting people in places where they have the opportunity to develop into those careers but also having a rewards and recognition system that allows a great programmer to stay as a great programmer.

Bobby Kotick

It's easier to coach a technical founder how to be CEO and manage a business than it is to teach a professional CEO the nuances of that particular business.

Peter Levine

I'm in a different position than most CEO's. I'm a founder. I'm not a hired CEO. Now, I can be fired by the board, but most CEO's are hired by the board.

Howard Schultz

I don't feel I'm at liberty to speak about the actions of any one CEO. That's not fair; given CEOs have duties to their shareholders.

Kenneth C. Griffin

As a CEO, you get sucked into dealing with all the tasks of being a CEO. There's a big meeting, a big discussion, and you get into all the big issues, which is your job. But what CEOs often lose sight of is that it's all about the people who work for you. For every 1,000 decisions, 999 were being made when I was not in the room.

Douglas Conant

I think of a traditional CEO as being divorced from customers. A lot of consumer company CEOs - they're not really interacting with consumers.

Tim Cook

If somebody ever says something is a mature theme, it's bound to not be. I mean, you shouldn't fall for that. You can make it sound mature, but anything that's about being mature is pretty immature.