Bryant identifies four recurring themes:

1. Applied curiosity.

2. Ease with discomfort.

3. Trustworthiness. In that sphere perhaps the most interesting comment is that of Jeffrey Katzenberg, a tough Hollywood executive, who is quoted as saying “you’re only as good as your followers.”. If you beat the drum of morons, that says a lot about you, doesn’t it ? The quality of your followers is in direct proportion to the quality of your teachings. If you’ve been following my blog for awhile, you see I expressly discouraged idiots from reading it. Who needs them ? It is better to have 20 quality readers than 20,000 piss-spot knuckleheads. I don’t need that kind of following.

4. The culture is almost a religion.

“You can have your stated culture, but the real culture is defined by compensation, promotions and terminations.” -Tae Hea Nahm, Managing Director, Storm Ventures.

 Show me who do you promote, and I know what your culture is. If your mid -management employees are 70% women, you don’t have to sweet talk me into saying who do you promote. You don’t promote equally on gender.

If you had only one question, what would you ask ? “If you could ask somebody only one question, and you had to decide on the spot whether to hire them based on their answer, what would it be?” Bob Brennan, for example, answered: “‘What are the qualities you like least and most in your parents?” What about you readers, what would you ask, and why, if you were making that hiring decision on a make it-or-break it single question ?

Bryant identifies as “best career advice” that of Joseph Plumeri, the vice chairman of First Data, a payments-processing company, and former chief executive of Willis Group Holdings. Plumeri’s advice: “Play in traffic.”

A lot of these interviews reveal things that most people know and have applied in their lives already. The learning curve, unfortunately is empty because Bryant and his CEOs don’t tell you How To Get there. But that’s why you came to this blog, didn’t you ? To learn what the CEOs don’t want you to know.  If you have a 3.2 GPA average these days, good luck with getting hired driving the CEO’s car, let alone becoming the CEO.

Helpful links:

Real CEO Talk Expose

When Number Two Can Step up into Number One’s Spot

The Art of the Deal

Max Cantor on the Way of the Sith

Books I’m reading this week:

Last week at the Monty Technology Summit I got inspired by the “Around The World in 45 Minutes” fireside chat with General David Petraeus which was hosted by Michael Milken. The idea came across my mind: what if there was an “accelerated” way to becoming a CEO ?

I have seen good arguments in favor of [emotional] fitness, determination, even levelheadedness described being like muscles, therefore, trainable. Those three traits I’m certain they’re part of a good CEO makeup.

CEOs, they’re both:

• abrasive yet super likable,
• uncanning yet predictable,
• direct yet rhetoric,
• semantic yet unstructured,
• unifying yet disruptive,
• a “lover” yet a fighter,
• visionary yet pragmatic,
• answering yet asking [questions],
• sophisticated yet simple,
• imposing yet friendly,

Cool site for new learning: QuantifiedSelf

Video debate of the month:

The Future of God with Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, Jean Houston and Deepak Chopra (2010)

Full debate video

@wolfofwallst JB and I we need to start a CEO Clinic #CEO #CEOClinic #startup #investmentbanking #careers pic.twitter.com/qJQNOBZ8l3

— Max Cantor (@FinancierGuru) March 21, 2017