If you interview or work for a unicorn or unicorn wannabe that excels at raising money you would be wise to take a step back.

Forget charisma and founder vision and consider what is really going on profit-wise and sustainability-wise.

Fast growth is good mainly for VCs, not employees.

If you can discipline yourself not to be dazzled by shiny words and concepts you can learn to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Do that, and you won’t need to buy this sign or tattoo the words on your frontal lobe.

Image credits: Sarah Rebecca on Instagram  and Zazzle

It used to be that work was part of life.

As tech connectivity increased, it became more life is part of work.

Now, instead of a work/life discussion, it’s a work/work conversation.

A year ago I wrote about Millennial optimization and burnout.

This year engineers are talking about how founders take advantage of it and that working for a big company is a viable alternative.

It’s a convenient narrative for the founders and CEOs who count on employees to put in extra hours—often without extra compensation—in order to keep their companies afloat. (…) Basecamp founder and CEO Jason Fried noted on Twitter, “If your company requires you to work nights and weekends, your company is broken. This is a managerial problem, not your problem.”

Working extra long hours was considered the way to get ahead, but it was also the road to burnout.

So, what’s changed in a year?

The advice to get ahead.

Instead of working long hours, nights and weekends for others the recommendation is to use all those unpaid hours working for yourself.

The answer may vary depending on the specifics of your job. But in general, you’re far more likely to get ahead by channeling your enthusiasm and ambition toward your own independent projects—not the company’s. (…) That is, after all, how many founders and CEOs achieved their own success. (…) Other ambitious young people may find that the best way to advance their careers is to dedicate their free time not to the jobs they have, but to the jobs they want.

In other words, continue with the 80-100 hour weeks, just shift part of those hours to your own projects.

Great advice.

Doing so would mean there’s a second party responsible (blamable) for your depression/anxiety/burnout/atrophied social skills/blown relationships/etc.

The truth is that whether those 80-100 hours is for yourself, someone else, or split, they will ruin your health and, eventually, your life.

Image credit: andrew leddy

A long time ago I wrote about what I call ego-merge, which refers to buying into the idea that you and your company are one.

Ego-merge used to be the result of long-term employment with the same company; these days it’s more the result of buying too deeply into the founder’s vision.

“The initial thing of ‘making a life, not a living,’ ‘community,’ ‘better together’ — the terms WeWork pushed as marketing also seeped into this company’s culture in a very real way,” said Kevin Hsieh, a software engineer involved in the group. “There is a looming sense of betrayal and frustration that that wasn’t necessarily followed everywhere.”

Betrayal is no understatement.

Adam Neumann, WeWork’s CEO, walked away with a $1.7 billion golden parachute, while employees are getting worse than screwed.

Combining an intriguing vision, with intense passion and an invincible belief in self, is a recipe that can  hook investors, workers and users — and it did.

Caveat emptor, indeed.

Top bosses can create/ruin more than a company’s culture, they can literally destroy the company.

How much damage can one person inflict?

Ask Adam Neumann, founder and ex-CEO of WeWork.

Just six weeks ago, the coworking giant WeWork was the US’s most valuable tech startup.

How valuable? Try $47 billion, based on it’s last funding round.

Then it tried to go public.

Almost immediately, all hell broke loose. A steady stream of rapid-fire headlines detailed Neumann’s self-dealing, mismanagement, and bizarre behavior. Within 33 days the offering was scuttled, WeWork’s valuation plummeted 70% or more, and Neumann, who believed he would become the world’s first trillionaire, was ousted as CEO. What was supposed to be Neumann’s coronation as a visionary became one of the most catastrophically bungled attempted debuts in business history.

Hard to believe, but it seems a lesson has been learned and the so-called magic of Silicon Valley is waning. Visions and charisma are no longer enough.

Investors, reporters, and analysts, chastened after seeing Theranos revealed as a massive fraud and watching Uber fail to live up to the hype, didn’t let another visionary founder pull the wool over their eyes.

Without new funding, and with the IPO shelved, WeWork could run out of money by Thanksgiving and be forced to file bankruptcy.

Founders and CEOs aren’t gods.

They are mere mortals; human beings just as capable of screwing up as anyone else.

There’s an old Italian proverb that says it all — after the game, the King and the pawn go into the same box.

Image credit: Phillip Pessar

Originally this post was written for and about founders, but it is applicable to bosses everywhere, no matter the size or age of their company.

However, if one chooses to revisit a post from the past one must admit one’s errors — especially the glaringly obvious ones.

I wrote that “tolerance for bullying may be waning,” which, based on what has happened in the intervening five years was clearly off the mark.

What does seem to have happened is the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” mindset has gained more followers, which is a sad commentary.

What hasn’t changed is that, sooner or later, believing your own hype will cost your company talent — or worse.

Bosses are known for the passion and drive that turns their vision into reality. While many are known for their technical brilliance or marketing expertise, fewer are known for their management skill.

Many harbor a secret dream of being hailed as the next Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Anna Wintour, Barry Diller or Martha Stewart.

If those names impress you then consider that they all are in Forbes Bully Bosses Hall of Fame (personally, I’d have included Jack Welch).

“At some point, those we consider ‘visionaries’ become puffed-up creations of their own imagination. When business executives stop looking beyond quarterly reports and stockholder dividends, they start ignoring internal stakeholders. We’re seeing that unravel now.” —Gary Namie, management consultant

American tolerance for bullying leaders may be waning.

There has been a real sea change in what’s conceptualized as good leadership. Americans have become disenchanted with power. Almost daily, they watch as leaders–in government, in business–fail to exercise appropriate restraint.” –Roderick Kramer, Stanford Business School professor.

In four decades I never spoke with anyone who liked being bullied and have watched tolerance for it seep away.

These days people vote with their feet; the question is not ‘should I leave’, but ‘how soon can I leave’.

The focus is how quickly someone can find a position that combines personal satisfaction with the ability to take care of their responsibilities.

Good management/leadership isn’t just about killer visions.

It’s about enabling growth by building up and never tearing down either the people or the enterprise for which you are responsible.

In short, take care of your people; without them there is no company.

Image credit: kowarski

I went camping this past weekend with some buddies of mine. We went zip lining, rock wall climbing, as well as some hiking. The entire experience was designed to leave the phones behind, spend some time reflecting and form deeper bonds.

It gave me a chance to take a pause in my busy life and truly reflect on my meaning and what my passion should be. Did it culminate in a vision that I can carry forth? Absolutely not, however I did lay a foundation.

I think often about the grand journey of it all. When I fantasize about winning the lottery I truly think it will be great to finally have time off to climb the Seven Sisters, the highest mountain on each continent. I am less interested in stuff and more interested in experiences. The idea of climbing alone or going on a sprit quest has great appeal for me.

Why? I have thought about that, too. The closest idea I can come up with is that I am unsatisfied in my current state.

I lack the vision, so instead I seek an experience where I will be alone to receive it. But isn’t that shortsighted? Instead of waiting for our passion or vision, shouldn’t we just act and move toward it?

I think it may be a combination of both. When Jeff Bezos started Amazon he had a vision for something greater than just selling books, but I’m sure he didn’t envision what it currently is. Successes build upon each other and passion can too. So maybe we just need a small sample that we can turn into the finished product.

Where do you seek your passion?

Image credit: pirate_renee

When a new innovation is announced do you ever wonder how much of their own Kool-Aid the founders have drunk?

At how often reality doesn’t support the vision?

And to what lengths they’ll go to prove their vision is reality?

Think Theranos.

Think ride-hailing companies, such as Lyft and Uber.

The vision they sold was that they would lessen traffic congestion.

The reality is far different.

One promise of ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft was fewer cars clogging city streets. But studies suggest the opposite: that ride-hailing companies are pulling riders off buses, subways, bicycles and their own feet and putting them in cars instead. (…)  One study included surveys of 944 ride-hailing users over four weeks in late 2017 in the Boston area. Nearly six in 10 said they would have used public transportation, walked, biked or skipped the trip if the ride-hailing apps weren’t available.

The reality of that vision is simple. Skip the bus/subway/rail/bike/feet and summon a car to add to the crowd.

And it’s unlikely that antonymous cars will improve things.

If anything, they will likely exacerbate the problem, since they will be even cheaper.

Speaking of Uber and visions.

In spite of the $17.3 billion lavished by investors, Uber’s 2017 loss was $4.5 billion and in its nine years of life it burned thorough $10.7 billion, 2/3 of its total funding — another record.

Wow! That’s some Kool-aid.

Image credit: Rob

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Anyone who reads this blog knows I hold very specific views when it comes to MAP and how people conduct themselves — some would even call me opinionated and I wouldn’t argue. But opinionated or not, I do my best to evaluate based on what is, as opposed to what I wish.

So it was with major regret that I realized this post is no longer what is — at least in Silicon Valley, other startup ecosystems, too many parts of corporate America and large swaths of the public (dis)service, AKA, politicians — it’s what I wish.

And I’m sure others do, too.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

I was reading Oscar de la Renta’s obituary (fascinating guy) and a quote from him caught my eye.

“Being well dressed hasn’t much to do with having good clothes. It’s a question of good balance and good common sense.”

What grabbed me was the second sentence.

Because it doesn’t matter what you set out to do or how much money you spend on accouterments.

It doesn’t matter who you know, where you went to school, how many hours you work or how brilliant your vision.

It doesn’t matter because without balance and common sense you will fail.

Because balance and common sense are the foundation of anything you choose to accomplish.

Flickr image credit: James Jordan

This old Italian proverb makes the perfect pin with which to prick inflated egos.

After the game, the King and the pawn go into the same box.

When it comes to software…

programmers think they know,

but users are sure they do.

Image credit: Computer Funnies

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

You could be a

• charismatic, visionary leader;
• talented manager;
• brilliant developer;
• fine storyteller; and
• able to raise multiple, large investment rounds.

You could still fail.

Why?

For the same reason nearly half of startups fail.

42% of startups fail because of no market need according to CB Insights.

Peter Drucker says it best.

Image credit: HikingArtist