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We sat down and unpacked the messy, unfiltered reality of being a startup CEO.
The kind no one tells you about. Not at panels. Not in TechCrunch puff pieces. And definitely not on LinkedIn.
This isn’t a “how I built this” highlight reel. It’s what actually happens when you’re juggling investors, layoffs, spin cycles, fundraising failures, and the kind of decisions that keep you up for months.
We dig into why CEO life is less “Davos and private jets” and more “burnout, pressure, and zero control.” What it’s like to be the person everyone expects answers from, even when you’re not sure yourself. And why founders need less hype—and way more empathy.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (01:44) - Inside the minds of CEOs
- (06:47) - Transparency and communication
- (08:37) - Dealing with the worst problems
- (09:51) - Limited control and influence
- (10:59) - Fundraising challenges
- (15:54) - Financial realities of CEOs
- (24:57) - The emotional toll
- (27:24) - Decision-making pressures
- (37:16) - Final thoughts
Creators and Guests
What is The Revenue Formula?
This podcast is about scaling tech startups.
Hosted by Toni Hohlbein & Raul Porojan, together they look at the full funnel.
With a combined 20 years of experience in B2B SaaS and 3 exits, they discuss growing pains, challenges and opportunities they’ve faced. Whether you're working in RevOps, sales, operations, finance or marketing - if you care about revenue, you'll care about this podcast.
If there’s one thing they hate, it’s talk. We know, it’s a bit of an oxymoron. But execution and focus is the key - that’s why each episode is designed to give 1-2 very concrete takeaways.
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[00:00:00]
Introduction
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Toni: Whatever you think CEOs are doing around you, it's probably not that.
Raul: I know there's this trope, CO founders, after a certain stage, leaning back a little bit, jetting off to Davos and sure these people exist, but then there's the being a plumber and being a maid and being a decision maker, and then also a sales person and all of these things at the same time,
Toni: the bigger the organization gets, the more the.
CEOs wielding lots of influence and power. It's actually the opposite today. Raul and I are talking about you and your CEO. I personally worked for two great CEOs, but I always thought, how difficult can their job be? Is it justified that they're walking away with so much cash and don't they have an army of awesome people like myself who is doing the real work for them?
While all of this is true. Your CEO doesn't have it half as nice as you might think today. We will tell you why, what that actually [00:01:00] means, and build a case for you to be nicer. To your CEO and Joy. So Raul and I, we just spent, um, it feels like an entire week together, but it was really just a day. Yeah. What did we, what did we talk about for solo?
Raul: Tony and me are working on something very exciting, uh, and we are planning on expanding this little thing here into a little bit more and be sure to stay updated because we have something to announce quite soon. And, uh, of course we had a lot of coffees too, and Tony had his little thing as well.
Toni: And if you can't tell that we're.
You know, taking this seriously, you should really dial up, uh, or join in on YouTube. You can see Raul's perfect, super professional new setup here that he's using in the studio.
Inside the minds of CEOs
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Toni: Um, but enough of that intro stuff, let's, let's dive in. What is it we're gonna talk about today? Raul,
Raul: we basically have this topic that we, we thought is, is, is quite interesting for a while, but we've never got the angle really right.
Uh, we think we, we have something that is actually also interesting to us, which [00:02:00] is how. Actually CEOs minds work, uh, and how also slash founders, what troubles they have and why ultimately, you might want to consider being a little bit nicer to them, uh, also to your own benefit.
Toni: And the the reason is actually that, you know, both Ru and I, we had have a little experiences with different CEOs.
Um, I myself have now, you know, been a CEO for a little bit of a time, and I think there's some realizations that whatever you think. You know, the CEOs are doing around you, it's probably not that, so they probably deserve a little bit more slack. Um, and today we basically wanted to peel the onion on this, kind of go a little bit deeper on what CEOs are, you know, usually up to, and how shitty their day actually looks like, and, um, why ultimately you should just be nicer to them.
So maybe let's, let's jump in.
Raul: So I think number one. And this applies from whatever perspective you are in. Even if you are a CRO or even a co-founder, sometimes the, the day of A CEO probably [00:03:00] looks different than you think that it does, and the stuff that A CEO does. Um, and again, we are using CEO and founder interchangeably here many times.
First of all, probably much, uh, wider than you think. But also not necessarily the things that they choose to do. So, uh, where maybe you are a product person or maybe you're a tech person or a salesperson, and I hope that that is what you want to do, uh, to, to some extent, at least eight to 10 hours a day.
The CEO doesn't really get to choose that much. They are quite a little bit of, um, I would say of a victim. To the circumstances and, uh, they don't control their own faith as much as you think they do. I know there's this trope of, uh, CEO founders after a certain stage, kind of like leaning back a little bit and, uh, jetting off to Davos and, and whatever.
And sure. These people exist probably not in the, the early stage startups here though, but then there's. Uh, being a plumber and being a maid and being a decision maker, and then also a salesperson and all [00:04:00] of these things at the same time, and especially being a salesperson, is one of the, the biggest qualities of being a CEO and founder.
Toni: I'm not sure if it's called quality, but it's, it's, uh, I, I would, I would just say it's the job, actually. Um, so when, when I took the plunge, uh, becoming a CEO. I was vaguely aware that basically my life is now gonna turn into me being a salesperson. Um, and you know, I've, I've been, you know, parts of that before, I've been a CRO before, so I was used to selling at least internally, sometimes to some, um, let's just say enterprise customers and, and prospects.
But as a CEO, this is, this is really your. Full-time job all the time. And let me, let me explain this a little bit more because it's, it's not only the selling to customers part, um, that, that I'm referring to here, right? Kind of especially early stage. That's obviously the case. Um, you sell a lot. I mean, I was basically a [00:05:00] Roblox.
I was the SDR. We had a couple of other SDRs as well, but I was the SDR and I was probably booking the most meetings of all of them. Right. Um, sure you do the sales stuff, cool. Totally get that. Um, but that's not even what I'm referring to. Uh, another piece of selling is also as a CEO to investors. I. Um, you know, every, everything is great all the time.
You tell them like how wonderful every, everything is going to be and, and so forth. And what you're doing there is selling. You're trying to convince someone of something, um, that, that you, you hope them to, to believe. Right? And then the last thing I would say is actually also selling to, um. Uh, either new talent or existing talent or your employees or something like this.
And this is not in an affairs way, but it's basically you have to put a spin almost on everything, right? And a competitor raises a big new round. The CEO needs to build some kind of a story of what that now means for the organization. Uh, a big, um, partner is doing something that's signed to encroach on [00:06:00] your product.
You know, the CEO needs to go out and, and, and, and spin this thing. Um, I don't know, something else might come along. Um, and the CEO needs to stand there and say like, you know what, actually, yes, you know, I'm really happy for that opportunity to talk about that problem. Here we are gonna solve it like X, Y, and Z.
Right? And in reality. Um, and you know, maybe we're gonna talk about this also later a little bit. In reality, I can tell you that deep down, they also think like, oh shit, like our biggest competitor raising a big round. There's nothing positive here, like zero positivity in that one. Uh, but let me stand in front of my team of like 10, 20, a hundred, 200 people and actually tell them, you know, what part of this is actually, you know, beneficial for us.
We should be celebrating that our competitors are raising massive rounds.
Transparency and communication
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Raul: So this also links to kind of like some advice for a CEO or founder, uh, themselves. So some things I've worked, I've seen work really well as well with this particular kind of issue. So your team doesn't realize [00:07:00] all the things that you're doing, and your team doesn't realize that not all of them are actually quite glamorous.
Transparency, as simple as it is. Is not really a habit every CEO and founder has adopted yet, but they should. So, being quite transparent, uh, maybe not about every single detail, Hey, we are discussing letting people go with hr. Maybe take it slower on that one if you really have to, but something like, look man, I'm spending like 20% of time, uh, right now, uh, just hustling people down for, uh, for a fund money.
Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm spending 30% of time in recruiting. Uh, we're dealing with, uh, kind of setting up a new accounting scheme right now, and, and that just takes all that time away. I find that that plus maybe even an additional layer of information is quite helpful at getting your team, first of all to understand where you're at and maybe be a little bit less judgmental about not everything being exactly where they want.
Because from their perspective, they're like, well, this is so obvious, the tech stack is fucked. Like, how the fuck are we not dealing with this? Uh, what's the CEO doing? He's not even in the office. Right? [00:08:00] So getting the optics right here is quite important to you. And, and it's not just for your self preservation, but it's also for the motivation of the team, A team who thinks that the C is just blatantly ignoring and jetting off to places here and there.
Um, the, the, the, the challenges in the company is probably gonna be less motivated and, um. Tell them that maybe you're traveling, yes, three, four days outta the week, but it's one to like this tiny city in the UK where you just went through for four hours and then yes, you were 12 hours in Paris, of which eight were spent transitioning, transiting, and four in a meeting room.
So I think that that makes it a bit more relatable and they will maybe also approach you to talking about that a bit more.
Dealing with the worst problems
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Toni: I think one thing that is, um, sometimes a little bit, you know, poorly understood is CEOs always have to deal with the worst problems of the organization. So basically what this means, something is going wrong and user CEO have to parachute in.
Most of the time, right? And at, at a certain stage you have your lieutenants below that actually able to fully own those [00:09:00] problems. Um, but that's, that's when you're a little bit, you know, bigger in the organization, but also sometimes that just isn't enough and the CEO kind of needs to kind of help out.
Right. And my point here is. At the end of the day, the CEO is actually only working on the worst problems that exist in the organization all the time. And whenever one is solved and you think like, oh, you know, my marketing problem is solved now the CEO really is just moving on to the next issue that they need to deal with.
Right. So, you know, we, we are kind of coming back to this, to this theme here, but be nicer to your CEO. Understand a little bit, kind of the. I wanna say the shitty world that they're dealing with. Um, and, uh, and, and that's what we are kind of trying to, you know, uh, create here, um, help you have a little bit more of a.
360 view also what's going on there.
Raul: This also links to the next part.
Limited control and influence
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Raul: So the reason that they're always dealing with the worst problems, and that's part of the source of those problems, is that [00:10:00] CEOs and founders have much less control than you probably think they do. I. Uh, especially controller, yes, what they do, but then also who they are actually supposed to talk to and how to talk to them as well.
So, um, you think that you're, the founder is ultimately your boss, but they probably have more bosses than you do. And, uh, that includes all those business angels and that includes all those customers who are only talking to the CEO. And that also includes most of all, of course, the funds, uh, probably VC money, um, if you have that, that comes with a.
Obviously benefits, right? So obviously the money and, and the, the money from the customers and from the funds, but it also comes with a lot of downsides. So the amount of time spent dealing with these VCs is typically much more than only the board meeting that happens once every quarter. And the amount of money spending with, uh, and, and, and coffees and lunches meeting with all kinds of people for all kinds of different reasons is, uh, probably much more than you think.
And they have less control over their calendar than probably you do.
Toni: Yeah.
Fundraising challenges
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Toni: I think another [00:11:00] thing to consider as well, it always sounds super flashy when the CEOs work on your funding round, and a couple of people want to be part of that process to kind of learn how this works out. But the issue is going out, fundraising is only fun when you have a really great company behind you.
Then it's fun, you know, because you, you. You basically what it, you know, the, the way this works is you're selling again, you're selling something, right? And if you have something that is absolutely awesome to sell, fantastic. You know, that's gonna be a fun journey. You're gonna call up a couple of funds.
These guys are not gonna send their SER investors. They're gonna send their actual partners to those events. You're gonna, uh, you know, talk to a couple of people and very quickly you're gonna have some term sheets. But that is, you know, that's the, the outlier. People think that this is how this works kind of scenario.
Most of the time, uh, CEOs don't have an above average, uh, company to sell, so to [00:12:00] speak. So they need to deal with the, you know, the, the, the cards that they were dealt and then going out. And yeah, I've done this myself once or twice. And then going out trying to sell that and, and trying to find a partner that believes in the story and then wants to invest based on that.
You know what, it's not that much fun. Um, it's, it's really the same story as selling a product that isn't that great. A lot of people might just say like, ah, you know what? Actually I'm gonna sit this one out or call us back for the next round, or call us back when you have pro market fit, or whatever it might be that they're kind of using as a delay tactic.
That is really, really difficult. And I can tell you this is also not fun to kind of do. Right. So, um, uh, this coupled with, you know, once you then do have a VC in the boardroom, you lose. Control over key parts of the organization, uh, of the business. And that is totally fair. There's kind of the bargain you strike.
Um, and it simply has to do with, uh, the new [00:13:00] investor coming in just wants to make sure that the money's being used in the right ways, which makes total sense. Um, but it also comes done with some strings attached. Right. Um, and maybe you're gonna talk about this a little bit more, but ultimately the, uh, free range of the CEO that you think he or she has.
It's actually not that free. It's actually fairly narrow, and they just kind of have to plow, plow through that narrow path. So let's just say you are a hundred, 200 people, uh, maybe a 10, 20 million or something like this, and really think about what can the CEO him or herself actually just decide by themselves.
Just think about that for a minute, right? Um, doing some specific moves in the budget, ah, need to ask the CFO, like, you know, is, is, is this okay with them? Is it not, um, wants to change something in marketing, you know, he can't do that by himself. Uh, once to do something in sales or engineering and the product, you know, all of these things need to go through [00:14:00] multiple layers of people agreeing with that, right?
And actually the bigger the organization gets, um, and you know, seemingly. The more the CEO's wielding kind of lots of, lots of influence and power. It's actually the opposite. It's actually less and less and less influence that the CEO really actually has of not just the day-to-day, but even some of the more strategic moves.
I. And one of that has to do with folks like you listening to this show here right now, it's like, well, you know, you're not reporting to the CEO or the CRO because, um, you don't know what you're doing. You know very well what you're doing. And then the CEO needs to respect that. And if, if he or she doesn't, then to a degree, they're either saying that, you know, you don't have a clue.
And therefore someone to step in, um, or you're kind of not, that's super important here and they know better, right? Both of those messages are pretty shitty to send. Right? So, and if you, if you have to do that as a CEO, it's really a kind of cutting the, what is the kind of cutting the knees, um, [00:15:00] beneath, you know, up beneath people.
'cause that's actually what it is, right? Kind of you going forward, you will be less. Capable and empowered to do your own decisions because the CEO basically kind of chose to, you know, take the steering wheel him or herself, and. This year. Like you just can't do that because you know the long-term implications of that.
So what are you gonna end up doing? You're gonna end up not doing that and having therefore less influence in the organization. Right. And kind of that conundrum, really, those two things kind of play together quite a lot actually. Um, and that frankly also doesn't only happen to CEOs at ZA to C levels and VPs that have multiple people below them.
We just can't go in and just, you know, grab the wheel and do something, um, that you think is right. It always includes a couple of other people. Let's move on to, I think, the most misunderstood piece. Um, and so this is about money.
Financial realities of CEOs
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Toni: Everyone thinks the big CEOs making tons of cash. And the answer is [00:16:00] that's just not true.
And sure, this is not true in the early stages of building an organization. You know, I think we call it ram and profitability. Basically, the CEO doesn't pay, um, themselves anything, or at least, you know, very, very little, uh, compared to market value. Um, just to kind of not create, you know, big cost center around this.
But salary aside, and as you grow the organization, you will be able to be one of the, let's say, top earners in the organization, aside from successful sales reps. It's, it's always a good sign that salespeople earn more than the CEO in any organization, by the way. Um, but the other thing that people are thinking about, um, when they're saying, oh, the CEO's is rich to a degree, has to do with the.
You know, the value of the organization and the money they might make from potentially selling that. Right. And let me just give you a couple of examples here. So number one, um, there [00:17:00] have been now a couple of situations where folks sold an organization for, I think, you know, a lot of money, hundreds of millions sometimes.
And, uh, the founding team walked away with absolutely nothing. How can that even be, you know, how can that even, how can you, and this was especially, I think they're called DraftKings or something like that, or maybe I'm mixing that up, but someone in that industry, um, I think they sold the company for $495 million.
Um, and they didn't get a dime. So why is that? The reason is, um, and this is. Let's call it the fine print of, uh, of those VC deals. It's liquidation preference, um, or, um, participating liquidation preference. There are a couple of those terms in there that CEOs and founders are looking out for a lot, but you know, still might get kicked in the butt because of it.
And that basically means that the VC doesn't only get in [00:18:00] all the money that they put in. I like to say there's a half a billion dollar exit and the VC put in $250 million or something like that. So it was, it was quite a lot of money that VCs put in. What you basically have in those liquidation preferences that that money goes out first and then the rest of the, the part is being split.
You have like different versions of that even where two times the amount of, you know, the money that was put in by the VC is being taken out, you know, before anyone else benefits. That very, very often leads to, um, you seeing people exiting for maybe 50 million, a hundred million, you know, 250, you know, whatever, whatever million you actually and many times need to subtract.
Not only, you know, the, um, some of VC money that went into it, sometimes even a little bit more. And then that difference, that difference, what is still left there, then gets divided up to the other shareholders. And that sometimes it's actually not that much. Let's [00:19:00] just be, let's just be kind of, let's just be honest here.
If you are a CEO founder, chances are you might get very well compensated in the open market. Like let's just say you're not the YC Combinator out of college person, but let's just say you have 10 years of experience. You've been successful, you're doing a bunch of, uh, you have been doing a bunch of really cool things, and now you're doing a startup because that's really what you believe in.
If you, after seven or 10 years, get an asset for, you know, 50 million and out of those 50 million you get five or two or you know, whatever number you think they're actually getting in the end. Um, comparing that to the earnings that could have just done by being employed and having had an actual salary versus the Ramen profitability salary.
Those two things sometimes balance out. Um, and obviously being employed is, um, from a risk perspective, way, way more predictable than the other thing. Right? And especially [00:20:00] when people think like, oh wow, these guys exited for 50 million, a hundred million. This is an awesome, you know, almost unicorn founder.
Well, the reality is they probably didn't actually make that much cash. You know, afterwards anyway, right? So whenever you're thinking, Hey, you know, these CEO guys, and, and, and ladies, they're just making so much cash, I can tell you that's probably not the case.
Raul: To make this really graspable, you can really imagine the curve of the earnings of A CEO, even in the case of a successful exit.
And, uh, very often in the beginning of the lifetime of that company, there is maybe almost nothing or very little coming in. And especially when that founder is maybe not 22 or 23 anymore, they might have some costs, they might have, uh, to rely on the, the spouse actually to, to pay the, the bills at that moment for a couple of years.
And I've even had it where a bunch of founders that I went to to lunch with, I had to foot the bill. Um, and, and they just asked me like, Hey, can you, can you pay that? I'll, I'll just whatever, uh, repay you later or whatever. And that happens. [00:21:00] And um, it's not that they're sad about that and they're probably gonna get rewarded later on.
Not always, um, but the lifetime kind of cash flow curve is maybe not necessarily what you believe it is.
Toni: And then I also want to say, um, I've been part of two assets reporting directly to the CEO in both cases. I have a rough idea what both of them took away. I. And my first time around I was like, oh, come on.
You know, why is he getting so much cash? And you know, all of us, we built the whole company and you know, how is this even fair? I can tell you now that, you know when A CEO actually, or founder gets to that point, after all of those. Situations where everything could have died and they actually lend a great asset and they are able to make some cash from that.
You know what? They more than deserve that. Hmm. They absolutely more than deserve that. And, um, there shouldn't be any envy or, or, or jealousy, anything like this around that. Um, so few people get to that point. And you need to make a lot of correct [00:22:00] decisions. And when you then finally do, I think the only thing left in the organization, you know, for, for those folks should be, you know, respecting and applauding them to a very large degree.
Right? So again, right. Even, even when there's a big accident, even when the CEO is making some money, I think people need to realize how much of an outlier this actually is when this, when this finally happens.
Raul: One more thing for clarity. 'cause I'm not sure everyone also knows this. And when they do get that money, the question is when and in what form.
So not every exit always, uh, consists of, Hey Tony. Uh, basically your stake is 20 million. You're gonna get 20 million tomorrow. Maybe that happens if that's part of the agreement, but a lot of times also that is linked to, uh, an earnout scheme. Um, so what is an earnout? It's a scheme where, uh, depending on how that company's being acquired, it might be cash very often.
It might also be a mix of cash and equity in the, the acquisition company. Um. The founders still then has to stay with that company for a while to actually earn the full [00:23:00] stake that they're, uh, entitled to. Um, so there's, I've seen all kinds of mixes, but it is very typical to have something like an earnout where the deal is, yes, Tony, we're gonna pay you 20,000,010 of which are in shares of our company and 10 of which are cash.
But, uh, you're gonna get them, uh, stocked up after two or another, two or three years until we make sure the company's up and running and then you can leave.
Toni: One other thing, and now then the capping it here and it's a little bit seen as a, as a bad sign in Europe. I think in the US it's a little bit different, but a lot of founders and early employees actually can cash in, uh, with something that's called secondaries.
So this sometimes happens. You have a very big, you know, think about a series B, series C like later stage round. Uh, maybe some organization is hitting the half billion or even unicorn status. And what then actually happens is that in this funding round, the investors are offering the founder and or early employees to sell their shares to them [00:24:00] for that valuation or little less.
So what that actually means is when someone says, Hey, we closed a hundred million dollars investment round with this new investor. It actually doesn't necessarily mean that a hundred million dollars went onto the bank account of the company. It might actually mean. You know, depending on the split 60 million went to the company and 40 million was actually spent on buying shares directly from those employees.
So this is actually really cool for employees and you know, founders to get some liquidity before the eventual exit and IPO and so forth. Because it is super risky, right? So what if it doesn't work out? And it's not like they're selling all their shares, but to get, you know, to take some chips off the table early on.
Um, that's certainly, it's certainly a good thing. But this is, this is, I think one of the, you know, now more emerging, more flexible ways, how you can, you know, try and try and make this work out for, for you as a founder, but also as an early employee.
The emotional toll
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Raul: Going into the second to last [00:25:00] point, the kind of problems that CEOs and founders deal with and.
From your point of view, wherever you are in the organization, uh, typically your problems, especially the more junior you are, are more, and I'm not gonna say your, your work is simple, that's not what I'm talking about. But the problems you're facing with, uh, you're faced with are typically more black and white.
So, uh, when you're a salesperson, you are obviously gonna stand up in the morning and your job at that day is to make the most sales possible. And that there's kind of a rather straight line to what that looks like. When you are, um, tech person, I'm not one, but I imagine that it's quite clear where we are in the process of developing this piece or that piece.
It's quite clear the meetings I have and what I need to do to get there, that's not the life of a founder. So for founders very much deal almost exclusively with very gray area problems that are very rarely, uh, clearly a black or white situation. So from. [00:26:00] Personal decisions, uh, about the company to strategic decisions to, uh, very explicitly.
For example, hey, like do we have to, we are, we are in a pickle right now. Do we have to let people go? Do we hire more actually to kind of try to get out of the situation, which are completely, uh, opposite strategies there? Um, do we need to find a bridge or are we trying to squeeze out the last kind of money that we have in this company right now?
Then to then get to a point where we can maybe raise a round because we're doing better again, do we go to the US or not? Which is gonna cost 20, 30% of the next round we're gonna raise. Uh, can we succeed in that? What happens if we don't? These are all very, very difficult problems to answer with, almost always, not just a very, uh, a clear yes or no.
And sure they don't answer all these questions themselves. That is part of what a board is for, but, um. At the end of the day, the CEO bears the responsibility of those things, and I can guarantee you that that's what they're losing sleep over. And that's what they're thinking about in the shower. And they're gonna do that for weeks and months on end, [00:27:00] sometimes ruminating about the same questions.
Toni: Yeah. And I, I would even exclude the board from that. I mean, maybe in a governance structure, the board is, um, supposed to own some of those decisions and they're kind of signing off on that stuff. But you know, it's, it's rare that the board is kind of doing any of that stuff and carrying those decisions.
So it's really, it's really the CEO and a couple of other folks, maybe the co-founders and so forth.
Decision-making pressures
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Toni: And, and the thing with those decisions is. You, um, you can never know if you're gonna be right or wrong with these things. You simply cannot. Um, and if you're right with it, then it's sometimes almost like, oh yeah, that was expected, that was clear.
Like that. That's, that's one of the things I saw the most of the time is when something worked out. And then people look back, it's like, yeah, that was the obvious decision to make. I mean, I, you know, no problem at all. Anyone would've decided that direction, um, which is actually not true when the decision had to be made.
And then [00:28:00] the opposite is also true when you did make the wrong decision. Everyone is pointing the finger and it's like, oh, you know, this was, this was silly. Like, why, why would he do something like that? Right. One of the things, and, you know, not, not crying about it, but one of the things kind of I learned is, um, and I read a really cool quote on this, but, um, like the, you know, when you, when you make the right decisions, when you are, um, when you're correct about something, a lot of people in the organization will hold up the hand and be like, you know, I was part of this decision making and, you know, I steered in that direction and because of me, we're going, you know, you know, we, we made the right call.
Um, the funny thing is. The exact same, you know, process, same amount of people. Um, do you know what, if this turned out to be the wrong decision, the only person that's going to, you know, have to hold up his or her hand is the CEO is like, yeah, that was kind of my fault. And everyone around the table, that was also part of it's gonna be like, yeah, no, I, I [00:29:00] think he carried that one.
And, and that's a thing, right? Especially on the negative side. Um, I think, um. It's really easy, it's really easy to, um, to dump on the c or dump on the one that actually made the decision. And I think that's true not only for the CEO, I think that's true for anyone making a call. Um, whenever there's a, you know, it turns out to be a wrong call.
Um, a very few people. I have the courage and, and the, and the spine to hold up that and say, actually I, you know, I, I was part of that decision. Uh, I also effed up. It wasn't only this other person
Raul: really consider that when maybe you don't get your will the next time, uh, for something as simple as, uh, some kind of budget that you're looking for.
So the, the age old question of how do we spend this limited amount of money, um, for. The million different things that we could be doing is, um, for example, one that they have to deal with almost every single day. And sure, they also have the C-E-O-C-F-O for that. Uh, but at the end of the day, when it comes to really strategically [00:30:00] thinking about, uh, this company, then at the end of the day, it's the CEO talking about that.
Toni: I also, I also think so, I mean, not so many folks out there, um, are a successful repeat founder, right? Um, most of the successful founders I've met. They're like, okay, done. Now, you know, I made some cash. I'm gonna do something completely different now because I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna go into this meat grinder here again.
Um, and that, what, what does that mean? It means that most of the CEOs, most of the founding teams in those chairs building those organizations, they're kind of doing all of these things for the first time. Um, and, and doing them for the first time has just a very large chance of being wrong about it.
Right? And, and ultimately they're gonna go out and try and hire people that, you know, been there, done that, and in the sales role and the marketing role and the finance role. Uh, but ultimately, um, you know, making those hiring decisions and also making those calls really, really difficult to [00:31:00] do if you have no clue whatsoever about these things.
Right? And, and learning by doing is great. But it's really difficult still for us to try and think through all of those different dimensions. And one thing that I kind of noticed, you know, with myself both as CEO and Zero was a little bit, yeah, there's a bunch of people out there want to give you advice and you can go into all of those different directions.
Number one, most of them actually don't have a clue what they're talking about. And number two, it becomes really difficult for you to figure out. Whom should he actually listen to? Because there might be 20 people with, you know, just as many opinions of what you should be doing and, um, how, how should you figure out who's the right person around this?
Right? And even that is a skill that you can get easily wrong, you know, listening to the wrong folks here, right? So again. Cut your CEOs some slack when they mess up.
Raul: And last point here. So it's not just that it's the first time that they're founding something, it's very likely also the first time that that thing that that company's doing is either the [00:32:00] first or, uh, among the first times to be done that.
So yeah, sure. You're, you're having a vertical marketplace for tulip gardeners or a SaaS tool for, uh, at sit at home. I don't know, uh, wood made by creators. That's probably the first time someone's done that. All of those advisors, all those, those, those things coming in, those sources, at the end of the day, nobody really knows how to do that.
It's not like there's a playbook, there's no instructions, there's no YouTube video you can watch. All there is is your intuition and, uh, and kind of your idea of where this vision should be going as a CEO
Toni: and luck. And luck. There's a lot of luck in this thing, by the way. And, and that's the only way I can, you know, justify myself not jumping off a off a roof or a cliff or something.
It's like, you know what, some other people are just a little bit more lucky than maybe I was or something, you know? Anyway. Um, do we have, do we have one more point here?
Raul: Last one might be tiny, but. When it comes to the inner life of a CEO, and obviously everyone is different, but the people that I've spoken to [00:33:00] and that I've really gotten to know also over years.
So not just like one meeting, that's not where you get these things from. Um, very often they have to also live parallel lives when it comes to their kind of mental, uh, health and when it comes to their emotions. So they. They might lose sleep over a billion things and, uh, that carries over to the next day in the shower and they go to work very worried that they're gonna be able to next raise the next round, or that maybe the key client is, uh, dropping off and what that means strategically for the company.
But then when it comes to the all hands, they have to be on point and they have to sell, as you said in the introduction. The, the nice parts about what's happening and praise people and make it so that everyone is hyped. Um, and, um, not, I'm not saying that that has to be the case, but that's how CEOs often are and what also a company needs.
So it's probably not a good idea to come in. They're all gloomy and all. We're, we're all doomed, we're all screwed. Uh, guys that don't even know what the point of this is. Um, 'cause if that happens, you're probably all gonna run away from that [00:34:00] team. And so this duality of kind of having to be between all these different states and sometimes even put many masks on, uh, also to the, to the, to the investors, um, is, takes quite a toll on people's mental health to be honest.
Toni: So, and there was, I get, you know, there was a, a bit of research done into I think Fortune 500 CEOs, and I think they found that more than 30%, like 30 some odd percent, um. Actually have, um, very clear signs of being a sociopath. Um, and, and the reason is I believe a little bit that because it is really taxing on, um, you know, on your mental health.
I don't wanna go into this millennial, gen X, y, whatever, you know, talk track, but it is taxing on your mental health, uh, when you need to, um, you know, run in two different, different realities all the time. Um, as, as you just mentioned, right? You, you're fretting over this one thing. You can't figure it out and you have this [00:35:00] chain in your head of like, Hey, all of these five things that are currently not going right at all, need to go right for me then to go out and do fundraising and then do this other thing.
Um, and as you not only talk to investors, you need to tell them, obviously this is all gonna, you know, it's perfect, but also to your team who are also smart people who are also like looking and it's like. You know, these five things are not going well and we kind of need probably all of them to go right in order to get to this next step.
And bringing all of that together and, you know, to a degree leaning into, it's like, yeah, no, I see the same things, but I think we can figure this out like this and like that. Um, I think it, it, it, it fucks with, with people. I, I think so. I think so. And I can just tell from my own experience. Uh, we know when we shut down Roblox, you know, I was kind of feeling actually pretty good.
Uh, and I was, after the summer, everything was great. Um, then we did the last couple of, of comms pieces to, um, I mean, the team basically learned first, then the investor, no, the investors, I think the board learned [00:36:00] first. Then the, uh, team and then the wider, uh, investors and customers and so forth. So all of this was done.
We are kind of, you know, shutting things down. Everything was good. Um, I was then sick for like six consecutive weeks and I was like myself, like, wait a minute, Tony, you're never sick. Like, I literally have this thing where maximum sick once a once a year, like for a couple of days, and usually those sick days fall on like a long weekend of holidays or something like this.
That's usually kind of how it comes out. And there was like six for six consecutive weeks. Right. And you know, as I was in there I was like, ah, you know, a little bit of bad luck. Now looking back, I'm like. No, you're probably a little bit messed up here, Tony. And, and basically your buddy was like taking back some of the toll, right?
And I think I'm probably not an outlier on these things, right? So you don't need to have any pity, uh, on, on me or with me. I'm not sure kind of how to say it, but again, be nicer to your CEO. He or she's probably going through some of the same. Meat grinder thoughts, [00:37:00] um, that I just kind of outlined. Um, and just, you know, lift them up a little bit, be a little bit more, more nice to them.
And, um. And, you know, maybe, I don't know, maybe there's a promotion in it for you too, if you're starting to understand Yeah. How the other side of, of, of this works, right?
Final thoughts
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Toni: So, um, yeah, I think that was even a little bit of a personal touch note here and, um, uh, in, in, in the show here today, bro.
Raul: Wow. So let's send it here.
Hang up the Spotify, apple, whatever you're listening this to, uh, not before giving a subscribe and like button, by the way, and sharing this with your friends. Go out, hug your CEO, uh, invite them for a coffee or a lunch and just ask them how their day is and see what happens. Yeah,
Toni: just be nice to them.
Yeah. Okay. Have a good one everyone. Cheers.
Raul: Bye-Bye.