# Garry's Channel: Should you be the CEO?

**Author:** Garry Tan
**Type:** Video
**URL:** https://www.ycombinator.com/library/Jq-garry-s-channel-should-you-be-the-ceo
**YouTube ID:** Xa6zsbXGQ5M

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We were pitching A16z, with Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. They asked us who was CEO. We said both. It was the wrong
answer.

This video is about why people try to do shared leadership, and how you can tell if you should be CEO or not. It might
seem like its not important... but it is.

## Transcript

- Picture this, it's 2010,
and me and my co-founder are pitching on Sand Hill Road. We're sitting in the offices
of Andreessen Horowitz, pitching Marc Andreessen,
and Ben Horowitz. We thought it was going
fun, just like the others. Ben turns to us and asks, "Who's the CEO?" I looked at my co-founder Sachin, he looked at me, we said both. (loud blast) And again, guess what? It was the wrong answer. The meeting might as well
have ended at that moment.

Let me walk you through this mistake, so you don't have to make it yourself. And along the way, we'll
talk about why we made that mistake and what it means to be CEO. Are you ready? Let's get started. (lively music) The most legendary duo that can
and did pull off saying both to the co-CEO question, is
Larry Page and Sergei Brin. The founders of Google.

You could say that we
thought we could be just like that dynamic duo. What was good enough for Google surely could be good enough for us, right? Whoa, Whoa, no. Look, we had a good hockey stick graph. We had software we had
software we had built that we were proud of. Look, most people are not
Google at their series A, I know we weren't. The funnier thing about
this whole thing is that Ben Horowitz actually
wrote a long formal article about this in 2013. He said, "Shared command
always seems really attractive to the people at the
top of the organization, like the CEO and the board.

We have two world-class people. This gives us the best of both worlds. We shouldn't get caught up in
the conventions of years past. We're all adults, we can get along. It looks much less attractive
to those who do all the work in the organization. To them it looks like
frustration, chaos, and delay." That's the real reason
why co-CEO doesn't work. It's bad for founders and
bad for everyone else. Everything takes longer. So you have a hard decision to make. You have two co-CEOs. You have to wait for the co-CEOs to agree.

That makes every decision
you have to make much longer. It becomes life or death at that point. You slow down so much,
that your startup will die. (wind blowing) Back to sitting in that Andreessen
Horowitz conference room. It was 2010. How did I find myself in this position? We didn't know who the CEO was yet, and yet we were here talking
to venture capitalists about raising millions of dollars. (deep sigh) Look, I didn't think being CEO mattered. And later I discussed
it with my co-founder

after our series A and he became the CEO. And if I'm being honest
with you, I regret that. I learned, you may not be
interested in authority, but authority is interested in you. Look, when you're talking about who's CEO or when you're trying to divide the pie, there are moments when you and
your co-founders are aligned, and there are moments when you aren't. Moments where you have to
divide the pie are the latter. And the best you can do is make
sure that you self-advocate. Try to think through what you need.

I'm absolutely glad I worked on Posterous and I'm glad I did it with
my co-founder at that time. But, it took me too long
in my career to realize, actually I needed to be CEO. And I needed to be CEO for the same reason I wanted to be a founder. If it was broken, I needed
to be able to fix it. If things are broken, are you
okay with someone else being in charge of fixing it? If you're going to be
incredibly frustrated that you don't have the
authority and can't fix it, then maybe you do need to be CEO.

And that's the thing I wish
I could have told myself at that moment. I didn't know myself well enough. And it took 20 years of
my career to realize it. Don't make my mistake here. Look, it doesn't have to be an ego thing. It's just something that
you need in your life. It's okay to need that. It's okay to need agency. (soft music) And that was one of the big
things I made a mistake on. I actually really wanted to keep coding.

I had to decide whether I wanted to be CEO or if I could keep
designing and writing code and shipping product. Writing code and shipping product, those felt really good to me. In the moment, I chose
sticking with the things that made me feel good. One of the things that did give me pause that you should consider
if you're thinking about becoming CEO is actually, it's very different from being
an individual contributor or director manager of a
particular part of the product. It becomes extremely important, right after product market fit.

Early on, it's all hands on deck, get a product or service off the ground. Later there are a few things
that only the CEO can do. And you've got to ask yourself, are you willing to drop
everything else just to do this? Can you convince people to follow you? Can you hire, can you
manage, can you fundraise and manage investors? Can you drive the vision of the company? Most importantly, can you be the magic that brings all of those things together, to build a great product or service.

Being CEO is a very specific skillset. And unless you are signing
up to do those things, and do them to the best
of your ability, don't. Being CEO is not for everyone. But if you want to be CEO, those are the things you need to do. The other jobs are
incredibly important too, but this role is a singular one. (soft music) Every situation is very different. For some of you watching right now, you may never want to
be CEO, and that's fine.

For others, you may love
doing another thing, but you may need to become
CEO to steer the ship. And for some of you, you knew
the day you quit your job, that you absolutely have
to get that authority. Only you can decide for yourself. Don't make my mistakes,
don't delude yourself about whether or not you should be CEO. If you know, you know. Then, it's on you to acquire
the skills, and manifest it. I know you can do it.

(soft music) Thanks for watching my channel. It's been growing really quickly. And I just appreciate all
of you spending so much time learning how to create new businesses, and maybe a startup. If you like this video,
please click subscribe, and the bell icon to get notifications for all my next posts. I'm trying to post every week, by day, I'm actually a venture
capitalist trying to fund the next billion dollar startup. We've actually been able
to do that for companies that you've heard of like
Instacart, Coinbase, and Flexport.

I just want this place to be a
good place where you can come for, the real lessons. The stuff that actually matters. (lively music)
