A reader says “I learned more from this blog than from Mark Zuckerberg’s speech at Harvard, Dale Carnegie’s books and G100 counsel combined. Don’t get me wrong, Zuck’s not a bad guy, but I don’t need him to tell me about the ecosystem and planetary welfare from his pedestal.” Thanks, pal. I appreciate it when smart readers take time to write. My readers are the smartest of the pack. They know what they want, and they get it.
Nothing good comes in life by chance. However, when you are a CEO, after you get it, you can tell people it was luck. And they will believe you. That’s the prerogative of a CEO, people will believe anything you say.
“The first thing you have to do as a chief executive is to learn to lie. Or if not actually to lie, never to give voice to four basic truths… Any sign of non-enjoyment, or doubt, or lack of faith in the company or individuals is taken as tantamount to admitting that you are unfit for the job.” via Lucy Kellaway @FT
Aren’t #CEOs better than the rest of us ? 🎧🎭🤹🏾♀️ #WhyIMakeMorethanYou #ExecutiveCompensation #CEOs https://t.co/zk0TiTqcMV— Max Cantor (@FinancierGuru) May 31, 2017
The Art of Deal by Donald Trump is a book I read some 20 years ago, didn’t read it since. It might as well be called How to Graffiti Tag. A friend asked me to summarize it in one sentence:
“Give a little, take a lot, and be the center of attention.”
That’s it. I’m not referring to Donald Trump, but to younger generation CEOs. The older generation when they lie to you, they’d be dressed up to the nines over dinner at Peter Luger. This generation they cheat you over with their hands into their pants over appletinis and roquefort cheese.
I call the C-suite the trick suite.
“What we’re building here is the biggest tech company in living memory“ via FT. Yes, maybe in the memory of a dying fruit fly.
“Companies rarely die from moving too fast.” via BI
“We’re at the crossroads of destiny.” Ok, buddy, then make a right turn and don’t look back.
“Everything I touch turns into gold“. Can you guess who publicly said this ?
Yes, you know who that is.
“We having been the victims of ___fill in the blanks. I heard that a thousand times, best of it you don’t have to be a CEO to say it. You just have to be a loser.
“We’re having some audio frequency issues.” -when on conference call not willing to answer analyst questions.
“Technically they’ve called default, but we’re not in any danger.”
“I want you to flip your thinking. I want you to do as many cartwheels as you can.”
“Whoever wins this one moves to the finals.”
You learn more from Suits episodes than from all the crap on largest career sites.
Since so many [60%] of my readers work in fintech and startups, I reproduce 10 most common Lies told by start-up CEOs from Quora.
Read Anonymous’ answer to What are the most common lies told by startup CEOs? on Quora