Hacker News Reader

Comment by CyberFonic | Hacker News Reader

If you have to ask, then you are not a competent CEO.

Once upon a time a CEO was a person with years if not decades of experience acquired by working their way up a career ladder. By working in different roles, possibly in different companies and most importantly working with and for more experienced people they acquired a comprehensive skill-set.

These days many people bestow upon themselves the title of CEO, print business cards and expect to impress people. Sorry, you can only fool some of the people some of the time.

View on HN

I've been running my own companies with employees and contractors for over 6 years, and that's after over a decade in my industry working in several different types of companies with different roles.

The reason I'm asking is that I find that people, often running younger, smaller businesses, can really be impacted by internal demons, and I'm doing some research to find out what those are, how people with more experience monitor themselves and what barometer they use to see how they're doing.

I'd love to see some resources for people who find themselves in a role of managing a team (or teams) of people when they haven't had the luxury of decades of experience.

Everyone has to start somewhere. Some people fall backwards into an amazing idea and don't have the resources to hire a CEO and would like to learn.

>Once upon a time a CEO was a person with years if not decades of experience...

Yes, that was before the internet. Now we have all sorts of companies, startups, etc with all levels of people / competencies including Mom's with shopify sites selling crocheted ear warmers that wake up one day and find themselves in the position of CEO.

If you have to ask, you are way farther along than most CEO's who are afraid to look bad.

You are suggesting that we give the Mom you are referring to the same title as to Tim Cook, Satya Nadella or Larry Ellison just to mention a few names. Looking at it from another perspective it is like calling a household cat a "lion".

Reading stuff on the internet is no substitute for the experience of running a company, being responsible for revenue, staff and answering to shareholders.

People running small business, like the Mom you mentioned, are more accurately described as "business owners". Just like we don't call a cat a lion.

but we do sometimes call lions cats.

this is 2015 and CEO's are not just men who sit in boardrooms who smoke cigars.

just like there are Chefs at my local diner, and there are Chefs in NYC's greatest restaurants. CEO's can be many different types of people, for different companies.

yes there are business owners, they are normally called founders.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com