CEO该怎么做?(Startup Playbook from Sam Altman IV.3)

这是一份详细的CEO岗位说明书。

(创业由四个部分组成,理念、团队、产品、执行力。Startup Playbook 是YC掌门人Sam Altman对这四个方面的完整阐述,这是第四部分执行力当中关于CEO的职责。)

Earlier I mentioned that the only universal job description of the CEO is to make sure the company wins. Although that’s true, I wanted to talk a little more specifically about how a CEO should spend his or her time.

之前我说给CEO一个通用的岗位描述就可以了,那就是保证公司能赢。话是这么讲,但我还是想稍微详细聊聊CEO应该把TA的时间投入到哪些事情上。

A CEO has to 1) set the vision and strategy for the company, 2) evangelize the company to everyone, 3) hire and manage the team, especially in areas where you yourself have gaps 4) raise money and make sure the company does not run out of money, and 5) set the execution quality bar.
In addition to these, find whatever parts of the business you love the most, and stay engaged there.

CEO必须做的任务有:

  1. 为公司设定愿景和战略;
  2. 向每一个人布道;
  3. 招人,并且管理招来的人,尤其是来自那些你不熟悉的领域的人;
  4. 融资,保证公司账上有钱花;
  5. 设定内部工作执行的标准。

除此之外,还要找到这份事业里你最喜欢的部分,然后一头扎进去。

As I mentioned at the beginning, it’s an intense job. If you are successful, it will take over your life to a degree you cannot imagine—the company will be on your mind all the time. Extreme focus and extreme intensity means it’s not the best choice for work-life balance. You can have one other big thing—your family, doing lots of triathlons, whatever—but probably not much more than that. You have to always be on, and there are a lot of decisions only you can make, no matter how good you get at delegation.

我从来都说,CEO是一份高强度的工作。如果你能成功,那你的人生会进入到一个你之前无法想象的境界——你的整个头脑都会被这件事占据。高度的专注和高强度让你很难做到工作生活两不误。当然你需要有家庭,这也是一件重要的事情。除此之外,恐怕最多还能去跑个三项全能,然后就很难再有时间去干别的了。不管你在授权方面做得多好,你都必须随时在线,因为有太多决策只有你能做。

You should aim to be super responsive to your team and the outside world, always be clear on the strategy and priorities, show up to everything important, and execute quickly (especially when it comes to making decisions others are blocked on.) You should also adopt a “do whatever it takes” attitude—there will be plenty of unpleasant schleps. If the team sees you doing these things, they will do them too.

你必须对团队和外部的各种事情快速响应,做到对公司发展战略和事情的优先次序永远心如明镜,在每件重要的事情上身先士卒,并且有极快的执行力(尤其是在别人举棋不定做不了决策的时候)。无论有多少让你心塞的难关要克服,你都要以“不惜任何代价把事情做成”的态度勇往直前。如果你能这么做,那么你的团队也会跟着这么做。

Managing your own psychology is both really hard and really important. It’s become cliché at this point, but it’s really true—the emotional highs and lows are very intense, and if you don’t figure out how to stay somewhat level through them, you’re going to struggle. Being a CEO is lonely. It’s important to have relationships with other CEOs you can call when everything is melting down (one of the important accidental discoveries of YC was a way for founders to have peers.)

做好你的心智管理既很重要,也很难。虽然有点老生常谈,但事实的确如此——人的感情起伏可以很剧烈,而如果你没能找到一个方法保持淡定,那你就注定要煎熬。CEO是孤独的。你最好与别的CEO建立好的关系,以便四面楚歌的时候可以找到人来帮一把(说起来,YC倒是无心插柳柳成荫地促成了许多创业者之间的友情)。

A successful startup takes a very long time—certainly much longer than most founders think at the outset. You cannot treat it as an all-nighter. You have to eat well, sleep well, and exercise. You have to spend time with your family and friends. You also need to work in an area you’re actually passionate about—nothing else will sustain you for ten years.

创业成功需要很长时间——肯定比大多数创业者开始以为的要长,别以为干几个通宵就可以搞定,必须好好吃饭,好好睡觉,并且好好锻炼。腾出时间来陪陪家人与朋友。你还需要确认所从事的事业是你真正热爱的,否则很难坚持十年。

Everything will feel broken all the time—the diversity and magnitude of the disasters will surprise you. Your job is to fix them with a smile on your face and reassure your team that it’ll all be ok. Usually things aren’t as bad as they seem, but sometimes they are in fact really bad. In any case, just keep going. Keep growing.

你会一直觉得什么东西都是百废待兴——创业路上各种稀奇古怪的超级大坑会让你大开眼界。你的任务,就是笑着把它们搞定,还要让团队相信什么问题都没有。不过通常事情没有看起来那么糟,但有的时候又真的很糟糕!反正不管发生什么事,都得坚定地往前走,使劲增长。

The CEO doesn’t get to make excuses. Lots of bad and unfair things are going to happen. But don’t let yourself say, and certainly not to the team, “if only we had more money” or “if only we had another engineer”. Either figure out a way to make that happen, or figure out what to do without it. People who let themselves make a lot of excuses usually fail in general, and startup CEOs who do it almost always fail.

CEO的词典里没有“借口”这个词。许多糟糕的,甚至不公平的事会发生。但是绝对不要说,尤其不要跟团队说,“如果我们有更多的钱”或者“如果换个工程师”之类的话。要么去找到更多的钱,或者去找到那个工程师,否则的话,就在现有的条件下把事情给做了。喜欢找借口的人多半会失败,而如果一个创业公司的CEO喜欢找借口,那这个公司基本上就一定会完蛋了。

Let yourself feel upset at the injustice for 1 minute, and then realize that it’s up to you to figure out a solution. Strive for people to say “X just somehow always gets things done” when talking about you.

遇到不公正的事情,你可以沮丧一分钟,但是在这一分钟之后要马上起来寻找解决问题的办法。你需要努力做到的目标就是当人们谈论起你的时候,会说“这家伙就是有办法搞定所有事情”。

No first-time founder knows what he or she is doing. To the degree you understand that, and ask for help, you’ll be better off. It’s worth the time investment to learn to become a good leader and manager. The best way to do this is to find a mentor—reading books doesn’t seem to work as well.

初次创业,迷茫是正常的。尽力去理解,理解不了就求助,逐步提升自己。如何有效领导和管理团队是很值得花时间去学习的。最好能找到一位导师 – 仅仅读书还是不够的。

A surprising amount of our advice at YC is of the form “just ask them” or “just do it”. First-time founders think there must be some secret for when you need something from someone or you want to do some new thing. But again, startups are where tricks stop working. Just be direct, be willing to ask for what you want, and don’t be a jerk.

我们在YC给出了很多“直接去问他们”或者“放手去做吧”之类的建议。初次创业的菜鸟们总觉得创业的背后存在某种神奇秘笈——其实并没有。只有一条,创业不能玩花样。直接就好,有什么事情你就开口直说,但记得别粗鲁。

It’s important that you distort reality for others but not yourself. You have to convince other people that your company is primed to be the most important startup of the decade, but you yourself should be paranoid about everything that could go wrong.

即便对别人夸大其词,重要的是你自己心里一定要清楚最真实的情况是怎么回事。在别人面前你可以自信地把自己公司捧到天上去,但是你自己要时刻警惕哪儿都有可能有问题。

Be persistent. Most founders give up too quickly or move on to the next product too quickly. If things generally aren’t going well, figure out what the root cause of the problem is and make sure you address that. A huge part of being a successful startup CEO is not giving up (although you don’t want to be obstinate beyond all reason either—this is another apparent contradiction, and a hard judgment call to make.)

要有咬牙坚持的精神。多数创业者太快就放弃现有的产品而去尝试新的想法。如果事情不太顺利,那么就从深层次地思考一下问题的根源,确保你想得很清楚。“不轻言放弃”是成功创业CEO的必备特质。(然而你又不能坚持做一件错事,这的确是一个矛盾的事情,需要做出艰难的判断。)

Be optimistic. Although it’s possible that there is a great pessimistic CEO somewhere out in the world, I haven’t met him or her yet. A belief that the future will be better, and that the company will play an important role in making the future better, is important for the CEO to have and to infect the rest of the company with. This is easy in theory and hard in the practical reality of short-term challenges. Don’t lose sight of the long-term vision, and trust that the day-to-day challenges will someday be forgotten and replaced by memories of the year-to-year progress.

要保持乐观。世界上估计是会有一些悲观的但也很成功的CEO,反正我还没遇到过。你要坚信“未来会更好,公司很重要”,并且用这样的理念去影响全公司的人。这件事说起来容易,但在公司遇到挑战时会变得特别难。不要失去长期的愿景,并且要相信现在每天面对的挑战在数年以后会变成珍贵的回忆。

Among your most important jobs are defining the mission and defining the values. This can feel a little hokey, but it’s worth doing early on. Whatever you set at the beginning will usually still be in force years later, and as you grow, each new person needs to first buy in and then sell others on the mission and values of the company. So write your cultural values and mission down early.

你最重要的任务还有定义公司的使命和价值观。这可能会显得有点装,但在一开始把它搞清楚是很值得的。你在初期定下来的精神会在未来的日子里一直发挥作用,每个进公司的新人都会受到潜移默化的影响并且把这些使命和价值观传承下去。所以尽早把你的文化价值观和愿景写下来吧。

Another cliché that I think is worth repeating: Building a company is somewhat like building a religion. If people don’t connect what they’re doing day-to-day with a higher purpose they care about, they will not do a great job. I think Airbnb has done the best job at this in the YC network, and I highly recommend taking a look at their cultural values.

还有一点,虽然被很多人说过但是我还是想啰嗦一句:打造一个公司和建立一个宗教有点像。如果人们不是带着一个崇高的使命感在做事,他们通常不会干得太好。在这点上,YC毕业的公司里Airbnb是做得最棒的。你可以研究一下他们是怎么做到的。

One mistake that CEOs often make is to innovate in well-trodden areas of business instead of innovating in new products and solutions. For example, many founders think that they should spend their time discovering new ways to do HR, marketing, sales, financing, PR, etc. This is nearly always bad. Do what works in the well-established areas, and focus your creative energies on the product or service you’re building.

CEO们常犯的一种错误是想要在商业运营方面,而不是产品和解决方案上做些创新。比如许多创业者经常花时间去探索人力资源管理、营销、财务和公关上的新方法。这通常不是什么好事。在那些已经很成熟的领域按套路去做就好了,把你的创新能力集中在打造产品和服务上吧。

怎样验证创业理念?(Startup Playbook from Sam Altman I)

创始团队需要什么样的特质?(Startup Playbook from Sam Altman II)

怎样做出NB的产品?(Startup Playbook from Sam Altman III)

怎样做增长?(Startup Playbook from Sam Altman IV.1)

怎样做到专注?(Startup Playbook from Sam Altman IV.2)

原创文章,作者:创业百花谷,如若转载,请注明出处:https://www.liuwanlan.com/interlocution/379

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