An open letter.
You should make me the CEO of your company. I promise to upset your investors in ways that are really, really, funny.
It’s okay to upset investors because they’re not people, just pools of money that long ago gave up on non-fiscal concerns like joy and human connection. You have their money—they can’t hurt you anymore. You can hurt them, though, by hiring me as your CEO.
Hire me as your CEO, bro. Do it or you’re scared. You don’t want other tech founders thinking you’re scared, do you?
Do you?
I’ve been working in technology for over a decade. I know how this works, and I know that all of the best things that happen at your company start at the bottom and flow toward the top. Management does everything they can to stop good things from happening, then takes credit for whatever slips through in spite of them.
My management philosophy embraces this reality and applies it to management itself. As CEO I will set up blockers for your executive team and directors, meaning they have less time to bog down the people who are actually doing work. I will prevent management from wasting workers’ time…by wasting their time.
I will fill their calendars with meetings that at first seem work related but slowly turn into a game of dungeons and dragons. I cannot overstate how many times this will happen. It will be funny to your leadership team the first time, then increasingly annoying, and then possibly eventually it will become funny again. I’m not sure.
To me, though, it will be funny every time.
Your leadership team will not be able to back out of the meetings because the CEO insists that they stay, and because their level five rogue is trapped in a prison and the key to the cell is just out of reach. This is the sort of problem I think your C-suite should be focused on.
I will then cut leadership’s pay, drastically. I will encourage them to unionize if they don’t like it. I will distribute their money to your support team, then also encourage them to unionize.
Your investors will be so mad. It will be so funny.
Mostly, though, you should hire me as your CEO because if you don’t I—and everyone in the tech industry—will know you didn’t do it because you are scared. You don’t want people to think you’re scared, do you? Do you, bro?
I didn’t think so. Make me your CEO. Do it.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Justin H. Pot
future CEO
