Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO (2011)(a16z.com)
a16z.com
Peacetime CEO/Wartime CEO (2011)
https://a16z.com/2011/04/14/peacetime-ceowartime-ceo-2/
112 comments
>Can we stop comparing business to war? In war, [...]
No, we can't because talking about any topic with war metaphors seems to be deeply ingrained in human linguistics.
In games like football, we talk about the the quarterback being the "field general" and the offensive tackles and defensive tackles "battling in the trenches".
When husbands & wives argue or fight in divorce cases, we talk about them "drawing their battle lines".
Historians or politicians often talk of "class warfare" or "war on poverty". The "Occupy Wall Street" protest is another borrowing of words from war.
Biologists and doctors talk about "war against disease" and the "war on cancer".
Wikipedia's most controversial articles have "edit wars" which results in pages getting locked.
In computer science, we have the "Byzantine Generals Problem" which is war metaphor.
If you want to jump into every thread <topic X> to plead with people to "stop comparing X to war", you're not going to get anywhere. (E.g. "can we please stop comparing distributed computing fault detection to Byzantium generals and war?")
Even the linguistics field which studied our propensity to always compare topics to "war" also went meta on itself with "linguistic wars": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics_wars
No, we can't because talking about any topic with war metaphors seems to be deeply ingrained in human linguistics.
In games like football, we talk about the the quarterback being the "field general" and the offensive tackles and defensive tackles "battling in the trenches".
When husbands & wives argue or fight in divorce cases, we talk about them "drawing their battle lines".
Historians or politicians often talk of "class warfare" or "war on poverty". The "Occupy Wall Street" protest is another borrowing of words from war.
Biologists and doctors talk about "war against disease" and the "war on cancer".
Wikipedia's most controversial articles have "edit wars" which results in pages getting locked.
In computer science, we have the "Byzantine Generals Problem" which is war metaphor.
If you want to jump into every thread <topic X> to plead with people to "stop comparing X to war", you're not going to get anywhere. (E.g. "can we please stop comparing distributed computing fault detection to Byzantium generals and war?")
Even the linguistics field which studied our propensity to always compare topics to "war" also went meta on itself with "linguistic wars": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics_wars
> Biologists and doctors talk about "war against disease" and the "war on cancer".
There was an article posted to HN some time ago (last year?) that argued we should stop saying people must "fight cancer" and similar terminal diseases, because it puts the patient in an unfair position: it's all about their "will to live" and their "struggle", and if they die, it can be seen as a failure on their part. While (I think) there is a mental factor to fighting terminal diseases, the article argues cancer will often kill you regardless of how much you "fight", so it's unfair to put it in those terms.
There was an article posted to HN some time ago (last year?) that argued we should stop saying people must "fight cancer" and similar terminal diseases, because it puts the patient in an unfair position: it's all about their "will to live" and their "struggle", and if they die, it can be seen as a failure on their part. While (I think) there is a mental factor to fighting terminal diseases, the article argues cancer will often kill you regardless of how much you "fight", so it's unfair to put it in those terms.
Good point, I'd also like to add that just because an analogy doesn't apply 100% when you try to push it as far as you can, doesn't mean it's not a useful analogy. If you could push an analogy all the way and still have it apply 100%, then it wouldn't be an analogy, it would just be the thing.
> ingrained in human linguistics
Or maybe more accurately it's deeply ingrained in Anglo-American culture?
Or maybe more accurately it's deeply ingrained in Anglo-American culture?
>Or maybe more accurately it's deeply ingrained in Anglo-American culture?
I don't know about all languages but French, German, and Chinese all have military and war metaphors that are commonly used in everyday speech. It's not unique to American English.
I don't know about all languages but French, German, and Chinese all have military and war metaphors that are commonly used in everyday speech. It's not unique to American English.
I think war may be more similar to business than you think it is. And it may not be very much like the war you imagine in your head.
You think there is singularity of purpose in war? Every general, every battalion, every captain, every soldier has their own interests at play. It's a miracle of leadership that those can be put aside long enough to fight side by side.
Crushing the competition sounds like the right move in war. But then why have so many armies failed to subdue and control the local populace? Could it be that treating the conquered with respect, as partners, as humans, might be more effective than sheer domination?
And how sustainable is war? It depends. In WW1, soldiers at the front lines for more than a few days often suffered shell shock from the severe tension, nonstop terror, and unbelievable pounding that must have felt like it came from the bowels of the Earth. In other wars, there is no traditional front line, and soldiers are deployed for months or years. And they're not in 100% fight mode the entire time either.
War and business are not the same. But they may be closer than you think.
You think there is singularity of purpose in war? Every general, every battalion, every captain, every soldier has their own interests at play. It's a miracle of leadership that those can be put aside long enough to fight side by side.
Crushing the competition sounds like the right move in war. But then why have so many armies failed to subdue and control the local populace? Could it be that treating the conquered with respect, as partners, as humans, might be more effective than sheer domination?
And how sustainable is war? It depends. In WW1, soldiers at the front lines for more than a few days often suffered shell shock from the severe tension, nonstop terror, and unbelievable pounding that must have felt like it came from the bowels of the Earth. In other wars, there is no traditional front line, and soldiers are deployed for months or years. And they're not in 100% fight mode the entire time either.
War and business are not the same. But they may be closer than you think.
The difference is killing, trauma, and death.
I would say that you are conflating two things: war done to destroy the enemy, and then taking political power of another nation by force, and ensuring safety and continuance of government. Soldiers do the first job, and police do the second. In the Global War on Terror, the line has gotten blurry, (even Vietnam was called a "police action") but even the lowest intensity conflict has life and death sacrifices for the mission and the imposition of political will over a populace through threat of violence that are completely unknown in a modern tech business. You could make the argument that lawsuits would be the equivalent to direct action, and I might agree with that, except there is no violence and it's done entirely within a set of rules (the legal system).
I would agree that businesses and militaries do share similarities, and solve for the same problems. For instance, employee surveys came out of troop morale studies in WWI, and there is a lot of cross contamination of ideas, like the book, "Team of Teams".
Finally, there are cases where businesses actual do go to war, think Blackwater, circa 2006, where the services provided directly support one side in an armed conflict. To me, that's what a business going to war looks like!
I would agree that businesses and militaries do share similarities, and solve for the same problems. For instance, employee surveys came out of troop morale studies in WWI, and there is a lot of cross contamination of ideas, like the book, "Team of Teams".
Finally, there are cases where businesses actual do go to war, think Blackwater, circa 2006, where the services provided directly support one side in an armed conflict. To me, that's what a business going to war looks like!
I don't really think he is conflating the two. OP make references to different types of conflicts. "Handling" occupied territories is something that can be a struggle both in standard all out nation state wars and in cases where you are fighting against gurellia warriors.
> In war, you destroy the enemy
I don't think that anything even remotely that decisive has been the case for many years now. From what I see, war these days is a lot more about attempting to establish a strong enough position to deter competetion for a sufficient duration to achieve economic/political ends.
I don't think that anything even remotely that decisive has been the case for many years now. From what I see, war these days is a lot more about attempting to establish a strong enough position to deter competetion for a sufficient duration to achieve economic/political ends.
It was at least the case for the Vietnam War, where -- besides preventing the spread of communism, the "domino theory" -- there was no clear overall strategy or goals, so the objective and only metric of success was body count. In that war, the US goal was to kill the enemy.
Of course, the US has been widely criticized for using that strategy and it likely was a major factor in their failure to win that war.
Of course, the US has been widely criticized for using that strategy and it likely was a major factor in their failure to win that war.
It took me a short while to parse what you were saying because I never thought of enemy combatants as "the enemy". The actual enemy is the political force to continue fighting, which generally is very loosely correlated with the people on the front.
I guess that's part of the problem with the Vietnam War. The nominal enemy was the vague concept of communism, and the actual enemy were the (perceived hostile) people of Vietnam, so the goal became killing them, aka "body count". That was never going to end well, one way or the other.
> It's a matter of life and death, and the strategic objectives are black and white.
To my mind, that is the whole point of the wartime analogy. It _is_ life and death (for your company) when you are at war.
Sometimes you need shocking analogies to get the message across to employees; if you have weeks of money left in the bank, you need everyone to be ruthlessly focused on the strategy that has been decided. No time for picking daisies or fixing tech debt when you have weeks of money left! This shocking analogy aims to provides focus and clarity when it's most needed.
> When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company was weeks away from bankruptcy—a classic wartime scenario. He needed everyone to move with precision and follow his exact plan; there was no room for individual creativity outside of the core mission. In stark contrast, as Google achieved dominance in the search market, Google’s management fostered peacetime innovation by enabling and even requiring every employee to spend 20% of their time on their own new projects.
To my mind, that is the whole point of the wartime analogy. It _is_ life and death (for your company) when you are at war.
Sometimes you need shocking analogies to get the message across to employees; if you have weeks of money left in the bank, you need everyone to be ruthlessly focused on the strategy that has been decided. No time for picking daisies or fixing tech debt when you have weeks of money left! This shocking analogy aims to provides focus and clarity when it's most needed.
> When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, the company was weeks away from bankruptcy—a classic wartime scenario. He needed everyone to move with precision and follow his exact plan; there was no room for individual creativity outside of the core mission. In stark contrast, as Google achieved dominance in the search market, Google’s management fostered peacetime innovation by enabling and even requiring every employee to spend 20% of their time on their own new projects.
Yeah but the parent comments point is that “life and death for a company” is categorically different from life and death for human beings, ie actual life and death.
Arguably, war is about the life and death of your state as a political entity. The lives and deaths of the people are the PR spin.
I suspect that as far as analogies go, this is a pretty tame one for a typical wartime CEO.
I would say zero to 1 is not wartime though. I hope no one is suggesting this.
Wartime is more about your company is rapidly coming apart at the seams and growth rates are going down rather than up.
If you've ever been in such a company you'd probably get why the brutal analogy being made.
I would say zero to 1 is not wartime though. I hope no one is suggesting this.
Wartime is more about your company is rapidly coming apart at the seams and growth rates are going down rather than up.
If you've ever been in such a company you'd probably get why the brutal analogy being made.
That's silly though. That's not what war is like. War is messy and ad hoc.
I completely agree that the comparisons to war are way overdone. However if this is your perception of war, then there is a lot that isn't really accurate.
1. If everyone doesn't go home it's a crisis, it's NEVER ok
2. We work unbelievably hard to try and find "viable, co-operative alternatives" and, at least in modern warfare, there is almost never a singularity of purpose
3. "Crushing" your competition hasn't worked since WWII - even then we worked to rebuild afterwards. Building Partnerships is a key tenet of modern warfare
4. On the ground negotiations are a daily/standard practice in the shit even if they aren't formal diplomatic negotiations
5. Low-Intensity war has been the standard for over a decade now too...and being in a warzone for a year at a time is not uncommon
So there's things to be learned on either side and it's worth really understanding both to have a full picture.
1. If everyone doesn't go home it's a crisis, it's NEVER ok
2. We work unbelievably hard to try and find "viable, co-operative alternatives" and, at least in modern warfare, there is almost never a singularity of purpose
3. "Crushing" your competition hasn't worked since WWII - even then we worked to rebuild afterwards. Building Partnerships is a key tenet of modern warfare
4. On the ground negotiations are a daily/standard practice in the shit even if they aren't formal diplomatic negotiations
5. Low-Intensity war has been the standard for over a decade now too...and being in a warzone for a year at a time is not uncommon
So there's things to be learned on either side and it's worth really understanding both to have a full picture.
>Can we stop comparing business to war? In war, you destroy the enemy, and pay in blood and gold. It's a matter of life and death, and the strategic objectives are black and white.
War is just a continuation of politics, and politics are neither black nor white. Neither strategic objectives are black and white - due to fog of war and imperfect intelligence.
>Business is not really like this.
It kinda can be, if you drive out competition, attaining a virtual monopoly(you keep one competing company on life support while you reap all the benefits, without having all the disadvantages of being a literal monopoly) on your speciality you are literally destroying a livelihood of all people employed by your competition.
>First, if everyone doesn't go home, you're going to have a major problem with OSHA.
if your employees are desperate enough, they will comply, especially in countries with lack of social safety net.
Is it horrible? absolutely yes, and we should do everything from system perspective to prevent it.
War is just a continuation of politics, and politics are neither black nor white. Neither strategic objectives are black and white - due to fog of war and imperfect intelligence.
>Business is not really like this.
It kinda can be, if you drive out competition, attaining a virtual monopoly(you keep one competing company on life support while you reap all the benefits, without having all the disadvantages of being a literal monopoly) on your speciality you are literally destroying a livelihood of all people employed by your competition.
>First, if everyone doesn't go home, you're going to have a major problem with OSHA.
if your employees are desperate enough, they will comply, especially in countries with lack of social safety net.
Is it horrible? absolutely yes, and we should do everything from system perspective to prevent it.
I agree with you on principle, but the "wartime/peacetime" vocabulary comes from "The Godfather" - a movie not about war, but the Mafia which I think is a little more useful to compare to business.
That's a bit simplistic and literal after all War is "war is the continuation of policy by other means"
I served in war time.
I run businesses now.
Business is war.
War is business.
I run businesses now.
Business is war.
War is business.
Another reason to stop is that most people in America at least simply don't understand war or the military very well. Since the end of the draft in the 1970s only a small percentage of the population has sufficient experience to talk about it sensibly.
I like baseball or football analogies much better. People who use them are a lot more likely to know what they are talking about.
I like baseball or football analogies much better. People who use them are a lot more likely to know what they are talking about.
If you can get a copy of National Lampoon's Aggression Issue (1980), I recommend P.J. O'Rourke's piece...
Business is not war, but they are similar enough.
If you can't earn your money by winning against competitors, you will be left to starve and die. No blood, no trauma, but the end result is not too different.
If you can't earn your money by winning against competitors, you will be left to starve and die. No blood, no trauma, but the end result is not too different.
I think Schmidt was the real wartime CEO here, when the war could have extinguished Google. e,g. Microsoft changing the default search engine on IE when it had > 80% share could have hurt google a lot more than Facebook or social ever could. Chrome was probably Google's "Manhattan Project" in that regard.
By contrast, when Larry came to power, Google was more like the USA today. Rich, with very good resources, and playing the role of world superpower.
By contrast, when Larry came to power, Google was more like the USA today. Rich, with very good resources, and playing the role of world superpower.
But at the time search wasn't really Microsoft's wheelhouse. That became immediately apparent to everyone who then immediately made the deliberate switch to Google. Essentially giftwrapping public trust in Microsoft and handing it to Google. Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot was the best thing for Google at that time.
Microsoft was prioritizing an unscalable revenue stream: advertising. Google was expanding the search market, and later came back for the advertising and browser markets once it had resources. Up until about the Google plus days Google never engaged in an endeavor with serious competition.
Microsoft was prioritizing an unscalable revenue stream: advertising. Google was expanding the search market, and later came back for the advertising and browser markets once it had resources. Up until about the Google plus days Google never engaged in an endeavor with serious competition.
I agree. Eric Schmidt was the real war time CEO. But let's not forget that he worked for failed war time CEO's against the same enemy (Novell and Sun when they fought with Microsoft).
[deleted]
This was published in 2011, and refers to Larry Page and Google+. It turns out that Google would have been better off if they had been less single-minded about pushing their new product. So take it all with a grain of salt.
Beyond that, has anyone else noticed how executive types LOVE to quote movies like the god father, wolf of wall street, and similar types of media, as if they themselves are the protagonist and/or "hero" of the story? Its a "Rah-rah" strongman ideal chalk full of projection and other bullshit mechanisms.
To quote M.A.S.H. " War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse." What is business? Cupcakes.
To quote M.A.S.H. " War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse." What is business? Cupcakes.
Yes. And what's worse, they misinterpret movies like the Wolf of Wall Street as something to admire (even if being aware of the excesses), when they are really descriptions of broken, corrupt, hateful individuals and criminals. Quoting the Wolf of Wall Street shouldn't serve as an endorsement of anything.
Yes I notice. You're not alone. I see it too.
War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse." What is business? Lemonade.
Love this. just wanted to punch up the end.
Love this. just wanted to punch up the end.
* chock-full of projection
I also think this article has the wrong take; Eric Schmidt was always training wheels for Larry to learn how to run a multi-billion dollar company. I don't think he trusted himself and he honestly seems like a pretty risk-averse guy. Realistically he hasn't been a "Wartime CEO" at all; Google has made a lot of money by making a lot of safe choices. But there are lots of safe choices to be made when you've built a moat as big as they have.
Agreed, not sure how well this has aged for a variety of reasons. If you really follow these things during "war times" most SaaS companies will attrit their core competent staff and be left with no army. Not a winning move.
I think a lot of CEOs don’t recognize when the war is over. What worked for a while may not work forever.
Stack ranking is a classical example. Firing the bottom 10% once or twice may actually be a good thing. But then you have to realize that this was a one off and you should stop or things get weird. Same with crunch time projects. My company recently has had a few high urgency projects with a lot of overtime and stress. Instead of calming down things it seems management has got addicted to permanent panic and not surprisingly people are burning out.
Stack ranking is a classical example. Firing the bottom 10% once or twice may actually be a good thing. But then you have to realize that this was a one off and you should stop or things get weird. Same with crunch time projects. My company recently has had a few high urgency projects with a lot of overtime and stress. Instead of calming down things it seems management has got addicted to permanent panic and not surprisingly people are burning out.
> management has got addicted to permanent panic
This is a classic red flag. One of the few easily visible from the trenches, too.
This is a classic red flag. One of the few easily visible from the trenches, too.
The problem with red flags they are easy to find but rarely actionable as long as you need to pay bills.
Assuming you can't move due to family or other reasons, maybe. You certainly won't have as large a pool as in the major cities. But if you're an engineer in a major tech hub, you really have no excuse. It's never been easier to interview and find, if not an obviously better company, at least a different company with a team that has a chance of being better than where you're at.
It's never been easier to interview and find
Indeed. And the overwhelming majority of the interviews ask completely unrelated questions to the actual work being done. I consider that a red flag. Take home tests expected to be done in your free time. Another one. When done jumping through all the hoops people will be presented with a contract that they hope the more egregious clauses are not enforceable, and so on. All this before the first day on the job.
Will people play along? Hell yes, and if asked we love all of that.
Indeed. And the overwhelming majority of the interviews ask completely unrelated questions to the actual work being done. I consider that a red flag. Take home tests expected to be done in your free time. Another one. When done jumping through all the hoops people will be presented with a contract that they hope the more egregious clauses are not enforceable, and so on. All this before the first day on the job.
Will people play along? Hell yes, and if asked we love all of that.
I can't really agree with any of that.
Most red flags are actually difficult to see for rank-and-file employees, or at least subtle. Not so this one.
Further, everyone needs to pay bills but it's actually pretty rare to be in a position where it's your current job or nothing. Most people can move, either within their organization or to another one, given a little bit of time and effort.
Most red flags are actually difficult to see for rank-and-file employees, or at least subtle. Not so this one.
Further, everyone needs to pay bills but it's actually pretty rare to be in a position where it's your current job or nothing. Most people can move, either within their organization or to another one, given a little bit of time and effort.
This applies not just to CEOs, but political leaders too.
Even Churchil, considered a hero in Britain after WWII, lost the next election badly to Atlee, as people were looking for a peacetime leader.
The good thing is Atlee setup the NHS. So I guess peacetime leaders are important after war.
Even Churchil, considered a hero in Britain after WWII, lost the next election badly to Atlee, as people were looking for a peacetime leader.
The good thing is Atlee setup the NHS. So I guess peacetime leaders are important after war.
Its easy to forget that Attlee was Churchill's deputy during the ww2 and that the various labour leaders who led govt departments (Morrison, Gaitskell etc) or in opposition (e.g. Bevan) in ww2 established their legitimacy to govern post-war. Similarly When Churchil was re-elected back to power in 1951 he recognised that Attlee's government key achievements like the National Health service (whch Churchill had originally fiercly opposed) were for the benefit of the country and did not dismantle them. Attlee and Churchill in some respects had combination of both war and peace time leaders that isnt always recognised.
(Edit: clarity and spelling)
(Edit: clarity and spelling)
I am glad you mentioned Churchill here. I recently read a few biographies about him, and he appears to have had just the leadership capabilities needed to win the war, but those same leadership capabilities didn't make him as successful a leader during peacetime.
I often think that war leadership is much easier than peacetime. You have a clearly defined goal and not too many competing priorities. Peace is much more complex.
In the end it’s peacetime leaders who build a country for the long term and make it better. War leaders are getting too much respect.
Aren’t the war time leaders the ones that make sure there is something to build on?
Not the ones that start wars.
This is one benefit of democracies. People can form alternate leadership structures with different strengths and focuses, without them trying to wrest power at unpredictable times.
Worth noting that in a parliamentary system, the voters does not select the prime minister directly. Churchill was popular as a leader, but he was the head of a wartime coalition which ended towards the end of the war.
[deleted]
My company fires the bottom 10% every. damn. year.
As a serial startup engineer, I've only been in wartime situations since leaving my last big-co job 12 years ago.
I agree with the large paintbrush aim of the article. Singular focus and knowing how to load your gun and fire those 1-3 shots you've got. You don't get 6, or 18 - that's peacetime. You have lots of data, customer feedback etc to show you how to point those few those shots, but that's all you've really got.
The one sentiment I didn't fully agree with was:
> Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture.
This makes it feel like during war time the CEO doesn't have control of the culture, which counter to the entire post, is exactly what the CEO has control of. It's just that the culture is different in peace vs war, just like the CEOs are. Arguably the whole company is different all the way to an individual person level.
To speak to the other threads, I don't think the co-founders of Google were ever good peace or wartime CEOs. I think they rightfully gave up that seat multiple times because it's just not them. And to be explicit, there's nothing wrong with that.
I agree with the large paintbrush aim of the article. Singular focus and knowing how to load your gun and fire those 1-3 shots you've got. You don't get 6, or 18 - that's peacetime. You have lots of data, customer feedback etc to show you how to point those few those shots, but that's all you've really got.
The one sentiment I didn't fully agree with was:
> Peacetime CEO spends time defining the culture. Wartime CEO lets the war define the culture.
This makes it feel like during war time the CEO doesn't have control of the culture, which counter to the entire post, is exactly what the CEO has control of. It's just that the culture is different in peace vs war, just like the CEOs are. Arguably the whole company is different all the way to an individual person level.
To speak to the other threads, I don't think the co-founders of Google were ever good peace or wartime CEOs. I think they rightfully gave up that seat multiple times because it's just not them. And to be explicit, there's nothing wrong with that.
Both the culture point and:
"Peacetime CEO strives for broad based buy in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus-building nor tolerates disagreements."
Feel off to me. You're always creating culture, and if you've got good people and a strong culture, consensus flows naturally from single-minded mission focus. No matter how dire the straights, you need buy in from your team. In a crisis, that buy in stems from the mission and trust you've built over the years. Dictatorial decrees without a team that trusts you and a strong culture will cause the company to fail regardless of how urgent the battle. They'll just quit.
"Peacetime CEO strives for broad based buy in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus-building nor tolerates disagreements."
Feel off to me. You're always creating culture, and if you've got good people and a strong culture, consensus flows naturally from single-minded mission focus. No matter how dire the straights, you need buy in from your team. In a crisis, that buy in stems from the mission and trust you've built over the years. Dictatorial decrees without a team that trusts you and a strong culture will cause the company to fail regardless of how urgent the battle. They'll just quit.
"Peacetime CEO does not raise her voice. Wartime CEO rarely speaks in a normal tone."
"Peacetime CEO strives for broad based buy in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus-building nor tolerates disagreements."
Oh good just what we need. More permission to be a jerk at work to try and communicate urgency. This is one of those things where a smart accomplished person says a thing and we're supposed to listen but even in 9 years this behavior is outmoded. If we framed all of this up as ruthless prioritization and clear understanding of urgency, then that tells you what you need to know. Figure out what works for you in a way that doesn't violate your teams' principles and values.
"Peacetime CEO strives for broad based buy in. Wartime CEO neither indulges consensus-building nor tolerates disagreements."
Oh good just what we need. More permission to be a jerk at work to try and communicate urgency. This is one of those things where a smart accomplished person says a thing and we're supposed to listen but even in 9 years this behavior is outmoded. If we framed all of this up as ruthless prioritization and clear understanding of urgency, then that tells you what you need to know. Figure out what works for you in a way that doesn't violate your teams' principles and values.
If the ship is on fire, you need the urgency that comes with the wartime CEO. But it kills the people during peace.
A ship isn’t on fire for years.
Yes. This is why companies (and countries) fire wartime leaders when the war is over. Look at Churchill.
After Steve Jobs returned to Apple early in 1997, and then became de facto CEO later that year, he was unquestionably a wartime CEO.
Yet many years after he'd successfully turned Apple around and, arguably, become a peacetime CEO, he wasn't fired. Moreover, were it not for his declining health, I don't think he would have stepped away even as Apple became the dominant force it's turned into over the last few years.
Maybe eventually he'd have stopped but, were he still alive, I imagine he'd still be leading Apple now.
Yet many years after he'd successfully turned Apple around and, arguably, become a peacetime CEO, he wasn't fired. Moreover, were it not for his declining health, I don't think he would have stepped away even as Apple became the dominant force it's turned into over the last few years.
Maybe eventually he'd have stopped but, were he still alive, I imagine he'd still be leading Apple now.
He also said that he learned a lot in his time away from Apple, that he became less tyrannical in the interim. So there's a strong argument to be made that he learned to be a peacetime CEO during his time at Pixar et al.
Disagreements affect morale and slow down execution time, and consensus-building dilutes ownership which also affects morale and in the mid-term also slows down decision making.
You can deactivate consensus-building and encourage disagree and commit without being a jerk. It's one of the though ones when you are leading, but it can be pulled off. Of course you need to collectively make the judgement that you want to give ownership to tight groups and that people will need to sense if they need to disagree and commit, otherwise you will sound delusional and get out of touch with the rest of the team.
You can deactivate consensus-building and encourage disagree and commit without being a jerk. It's one of the though ones when you are leading, but it can be pulled off. Of course you need to collectively make the judgement that you want to give ownership to tight groups and that people will need to sense if they need to disagree and commit, otherwise you will sound delusional and get out of touch with the rest of the team.
Agreed; In an emergency. You aren't having an emergency for years at a time. That's just normal.
Nonsense.
Tell many people who lived through World War II in an active theatre or, in more recent decades, conflicts in Somalia, Syria, or Yemen, that, "You aren't having an emergency for years at a time. That's just normal."
Steering back from warfare to business, after returning to Apple it took Steve Jobs several years it around and put it on a long-term firm stable financial footing. He avoided bankruptcy fairly quickly (he had no other option), but they were by no means out of the woods.
In the auto industry it took years for Toyota and, particularly, Nissan to turn around after WWII. In the early 1980s Chrysler were in a dreadful state after a combination of years of mismanagement and the second oil shock of 1979.
These problems were not quick or easy to fix.
Tell many people who lived through World War II in an active theatre or, in more recent decades, conflicts in Somalia, Syria, or Yemen, that, "You aren't having an emergency for years at a time. That's just normal."
Steering back from warfare to business, after returning to Apple it took Steve Jobs several years it around and put it on a long-term firm stable financial footing. He avoided bankruptcy fairly quickly (he had no other option), but they were by no means out of the woods.
In the auto industry it took years for Toyota and, particularly, Nissan to turn around after WWII. In the early 1980s Chrysler were in a dreadful state after a combination of years of mismanagement and the second oil shock of 1979.
These problems were not quick or easy to fix.
I’m genuinely curious why he thinks a wartime leader needs to yell all the time, whereas a peacetime leader doesn’t.
I would think that yelling is either effective, or not effective, in producing outcomes and that should be true regardless of external circumstances. But maybe the desired outcomes are different in the two times? And the effectiveness of yelling varies by desired outcome?
I find that explanation unlikely, but possible. More likely he likes to yell, and is looking for justification.
I would think that yelling is either effective, or not effective, in producing outcomes and that should be true regardless of external circumstances. But maybe the desired outcomes are different in the two times? And the effectiveness of yelling varies by desired outcome?
I find that explanation unlikely, but possible. More likely he likes to yell, and is looking for justification.
>Figure out what works for you in a way that doesn't violate your teams' principles and values.
What works for me is to be a jerk
and if it violates my teams' principles and values, I replace those individuals until it doesn't
;)
What works for me is to be a jerk
and if it violates my teams' principles and values, I replace those individuals until it doesn't
;)
Looks like we've got a badass on our hands!
Seriously though, looking at your linkedin profile, you have been out of school for less than 2 years. There's a lot more to learn about other people.
Seriously though, looking at your linkedin profile, you have been out of school for less than 2 years. There's a lot more to learn about other people.
The winking smiley was meant to give it away as a joke.. because the parent's final statement doesn't actually mean anything (because it still justifies any behavior... including the one being attacked)
Some of us like this in our leaders. I guess I subconsciously want to hear the truth, and assume less subterfuge if people are not using political speech. Kindness and political speech have me second guessing, which is more uncomfortable than taking criticism and moving on.
There's a far cry from having integrity and honesty, and being a jerk.
Using political speech is often being a huge jerk, because you have a power imbalance and someone calling you out on it has to fight against the tide.
Consider who you are speaking to, in what context, and be as authentic as you can.
Using political speech is often being a huge jerk, because you have a power imbalance and someone calling you out on it has to fight against the tide.
Consider who you are speaking to, in what context, and be as authentic as you can.
Completely agree. Theres also a difference between the wartime CEO who issues order and doesn't stop to consider every word. He says what he means, sometimes that isn't what others hear, sometimes it is abrasive, sometimes it runs over people...and someone who is just verbally abusive.
I think there is a critical element here, which is that the wartime CEO must actually be leading. If you behave like that, but can also inspire people to work for the cause, then it can work. If you behave that way, but also just say meaningless, mean, and average stuff, nobody needs to be exposed to that.
I think there is a critical element here, which is that the wartime CEO must actually be leading. If you behave like that, but can also inspire people to work for the cause, then it can work. If you behave that way, but also just say meaningless, mean, and average stuff, nobody needs to be exposed to that.
Why not be honest about in during the interview process so that they can choose to not be around you if they don't like your management style? Save you time and money on hiring people who aren't a good fit.
Mostly, over time, you get the team you deserve ;)
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"Anybody can do peacetime CEO, you just sit and do nothing. I, on the other hand, am a Warrior CEO of great success!"
>Wartime CEO is too busy fighting the enemy to read management books written by consultants who have never managed a fruit stand.
Such a good point. Most of the famous management books fall into this category.
Such a good point. Most of the famous management books fall into this category.
A good CEO seems to be able to separate the theories that bring value. Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs with Jim Collins for example. Maybe management science is still in its early days.
I'm indifferent towards the content of this article, but a meta-point: it is interesting how our civilian society has militarized so thoroughly. There are the obvious things like the militarization of the police forces, but it has trickled down to seemingly frivolous things like "Cupcake Wars" and "Cutthroat Kitchen".
I wonder if this is organic or not.
I wonder if this is organic or not.
It might be because members of developed societies are so unlikely to come into contact with actual war that they can call even the most minor conflicts a war. Lack of stimulus accentuates what little you can get.
Or just more broadly people trying to market their things as being a higher level than their competitors. This escalates the language used and we end up with things like cupcake wars and every other article claiming someone "slammed" or "destroyed" another by just making a comment.
Totally agree. I think to some degree it started with the first Iraq war when the first GPS bombs made war look like a cool video game. I think it’s a very bad trend that eventually will lower the threshold to real war. Same for torture. Movies have made torture look cool and useful.
I think these analogies are way way older than Iraq, and I'd bet they exist in cultures all over the world. War is probably the most intense part of the human experience, and using War analogies lends easy power to your statements.
Odd. I've always interpreted these tropes as caricatures of people who act _as if_ they're at war or at peace, not as binary exemplars. The world's a lot more complex than war/peace, surely?
Discussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2450669
What a treasure the long life of the HN archives has become.
This is much more entertaining if you replace wartime CEO with Goofus, and peacetime CEO with Gallant.
Even if you take the analogy literally, the distinction between peacetime and wartime has itself blurred as a result of nonlinear warfare and "forever" wars. I think it's clear that Ben Horowitz has not been an operator in far too long and anyone who takes this advice seriously deserves the failure that's coming to them. If we're going to match thinkpiece VCs against other thinkpiece VCs, Peter Thiel is probably much more sanguine and closer to reality than he is.
Thiel argues that the opposite of the competition emerges (which is a monopoly), and that these monopolies tend to operate much more ruthlessly and efficiently in the present day and are much harder, if not impossible, to dismantle. I disagree with him on whether that's a good thing or not, but I think his understanding of corporate mechanisms is much closer to reality than Ben Horowitz. The truth is that war theater is expensive -- too expensive these days for anyone to afford. Those characteristics of the "wartime CEO" he demonstrates (as well as some of the "Peacetime CEO") -- besides more focus on the present than the future, how many of them truly are proactively solving the crisis rather than reactively panicking?
Thiel argues that the opposite of the competition emerges (which is a monopoly), and that these monopolies tend to operate much more ruthlessly and efficiently in the present day and are much harder, if not impossible, to dismantle. I disagree with him on whether that's a good thing or not, but I think his understanding of corporate mechanisms is much closer to reality than Ben Horowitz. The truth is that war theater is expensive -- too expensive these days for anyone to afford. Those characteristics of the "wartime CEO" he demonstrates (as well as some of the "Peacetime CEO") -- besides more focus on the present than the future, how many of them truly are proactively solving the crisis rather than reactively panicking?
For any sufficiently large organisation, they will have parts of the business that are in "wartime" and parts that are in "peacetime".
The great CEO is able to manage their organisation to handle both. But odd are, you won't see this. Because they know to do that effectively, their "all hands" messaging has to be bland, tending towards peacetime messaging - or risk spooking the peacetime parts of the business. But then when talking to the wartime parts of the business, typically much smaller audiences, they are aggressive, and encourage the single minded focus of the leader of that part of the business.
Simon Wardley has many many good articles on this topic, often with the military angle - because war is the ultimate expression of conflict, and business are always in conflict with something.
The great CEO is able to manage their organisation to handle both. But odd are, you won't see this. Because they know to do that effectively, their "all hands" messaging has to be bland, tending towards peacetime messaging - or risk spooking the peacetime parts of the business. But then when talking to the wartime parts of the business, typically much smaller audiences, they are aggressive, and encourage the single minded focus of the leader of that part of the business.
Simon Wardley has many many good articles on this topic, often with the military angle - because war is the ultimate expression of conflict, and business are always in conflict with something.
Just fyi, this is not an article about being a CEO during an actual war, to anyone in the audience scrolling through the comments trying to figure that out. It's just about being a CEO when the competition is far behind, versus being a CEO when the competition is very close.
I think this is applicable to not just CEOs, but project managers and engineers too. Some PMs and Devs just cant function when things cool down.
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Oh the bloated self importance.
Some companies (e.g. Netflix) seem to operate as if there's always a war going on.
Its probably good for a lot of companies to adopt a wartime mentality every once in a while.
The day it became obvious that streaming was the future, Netflix was immediately at war, because at some point, in a streaming world, there is no reason not for d2c streaming, and Netflix owned zero content.
Except that d2c streaming implies fragmentation, and as more streaming services emerge it seems that piracy is back on the rise.
Perhaps Netflix offered something unique, or perhaps paying one provider and using one app is more of a benefit than it's given credit for.
Perhaps Netflix offered something unique, or perhaps paying one provider and using one app is more of a benefit than it's given credit for.
I think it needs to be a deliberate choice with an understanding of upsides and downsides of the approach. As far as I know Netflix knows what they are doing. Other companies often don’t.
War is not a great comparison to running a business. It's definitely not a great premise for enabling what seems like a hostile work environment.
this assumes that fighting with competitors for the same market is undoubtedly the way to go rather than seaching for new opportunities.
A tactical retreat certainly slots into the wartime metaphor, I think the assumption is more that the CEO finds themselves fighting with competitors.
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Business is not really like this. First, if everyone doesn't go home, you're going to have a major problem with OSHA. Next, there is rarely a singularity of purpose around a strategy and viable, co-operative alternatives are possible. Next, crushing all your competition would lead to an un-beneficial monopoly, so it's not really a worthwhile fight. Finally, war, and specifically combat are high stress and traumatic experiences that are not sustainable for more than a few months at a time. Humans can act in this way, and maybe the CEO is in this pure fight/ flight/freeze/posture mode, but it's not great to lead a major company there.
That said, there is a lot we can learn from the military, but this "business as war" analogy is pretty absurd. Does it mean the workers are mercenaries? If a worker leaves the company, are they a traitor? Maybe I'm reading too far into it, but let's leave war to the military!