What I would say to a new CEO is to draw a diagram and put yourself in the center. At the top of the vertical line, put your board and shareholders; at the bottom of this line, the management team and employees. On the left of the horizontal line, put what we can call the “market-driving factors” — customers, distributors, industrial partners. On the right, the external, “non-market-driving factors” — regulators, media, academia, and so on. Then quickly identify the people on each of these fronts that you can trust to deliver. This is the radar screen you should look at every morning to ensure that you’re not losing control of any of these things that could snowball very rapidly in any startup. As a CEO, you cannot afford the luxury of not being active on all these fronts.
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