No position in a company is more important than the CEO and, as a result, no job gets more scrutiny. Sadly, little of this analysis benefits CEOs as most of the discussions happen behind their backs. This post is a step in the opposite direction. By describing how Andreessen Horowitz evaluates CEOs, I am at the same time describing what I think the job of the CEO is. Here are the key questions we ask:
1. Does the CEO know what to do?
2. Can the CEO get the company to do what she knows?
3. Did the CEO achieve the desired results against an appropriate set of objectives?