This week two of our favorite videos comes from hours of great conversation last week with our former cofounder and great friend Andy Sparks. The first ponders how our typical approaches to strategy might be like playing chess without being able to see the chess board. And we also have a great video from one of the most experienced COO’s in startups, Keith Rabois.
We hope all of you are off to a great start in 2019!
From the Operators
Simon Wardley of Leading Edge Forum asks what would it like to be playing chess without being able to see the chess board or know the rules. It turns out this mode of blind thinking is where most business advice comes from. Situation Normal, Everything Must Change is humorous talk worth seeing.
Thompson Aderinkomi of Nice Healthcare tells the story of being fired as a CEO only to watch his company be shuttered months later. As if that wasn’t enough, he’s now recreating the company from scratch without venture scale funding. Read the full story at Indie and Me.
From the Investors
Keith Rabois of Khosla Ventures did a great talk called How to Operate several years ago. Enough people have recommended it that I finally checked it out, and boy is it a good one. We’re breaking our own rule that all content must be fresh, because Keith’s advice is so useful.
Dave Kellogg of Host Analytics shares A Simple Trick To Get Your CEO Closer to Your Team. Middle managers in companies with 50-200 employees can benefit from this tactic.
Shannon Liston of Techstars explains How To Shutter Your Startup: Best Practices for Corporate Dissolution. This is the tip of the iceberg, and we wish there was more written about this given how many founders we’ve seen wait to plan this until there are only 30-60 days of cash left.
Morgan Housel of Collaborative Fund wonders if our Wild Expectations for leadership are too high. She mentions a fascinating bit of history about Harry Truman taking over from Roosevelt I didn’t know about.
From the Authors
Jonathan Rosenberg of Five9 announced on Twitter his new book Trillion Dollar Coach, a collection of insights from Bill Campbell who coached Steve Jobs, Larry page, and probably dozens of other successful entrepreneurs.
Eliot Peper announced on Twitter his new novel Breach. His two preceding books Bandwidth and Borderless have been completely on point with our political situation and the challenges technology has introduced.