I’m sure everyone in startup land has read the “CEO of something” piece by Zynga CEO.  My thoughts:

·      Of course everyone in a startup should have that mindset

·      Of course every CEO of a startup should encourage that culture

·      But like Ronald Regan said, “Trust but verify”

·      Every good CEO needs to be on top of their and everyone else’s shit. It’s great if everyone is empowered, moving fast, feels great but you’ve got to manage. You have to have:

o   The processes in place to understand what’s going on across the business

o   The right amount of weekly meetings with your team leaders to cover things f2f

o   Clear concise goals for everyone to make these decisions against

If you don’t….Well, your f#@#$!  and your letting everyone be CEO approach will do nothing but create a cowboy environment and you’ll have no idea what’s going on or ability to string it all together. 

Again, great concept. But wrangling everyone together is the real art of a startup CEO.