I think if there's any difference between me and a traditional CEO, it's that I've been unwilling to change myself or shape my personality around what's expected.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I hadn't grown up always aspiring to be a CEO.
I think, you know, a fellow CEO said to me that the interesting thing about being CEO that's really striking is that you have very few decisions that you need to make, and you need to make them absolutely perfectly.
I never set out to be CEO. I always set out to be a good team member, a good colleague.
Am I as experienced, or mature, or smart as others CEOs? No probably not, but there's something, I think, very useful about having a founder as the CEO.
Nobody knows how to be a CEO. It's something you have to learn. It's a very lonely job.
As a CEO, you get sucked into dealing with all the tasks of being a CEO. There's a big meeting, a big discussion, and you get into all the big issues, which is your job. But what CEOs often lose sight of is that it's all about the people who work for you. For every 1,000 decisions, 999 were being made when I was not in the room.
I always believe that, as you start out, while you should have a big dream - a big goal - but it's also important to move step by step. So, you know, frankly, if you ask me, when I started as a management trainee in 1984, I don't know that I really thought that I would become the CEO.
When I came into the CEO office, I basically changed the entire management team. We knew that we had to change the company, so we needed a new set of leaders.
I became CEO at the beginning of the hit on old economy stocks. When something like that occurs in your first six months as a CEO of a more traditional branded firm, it makes for a fast learning curve.
In life, you don't have a level of confrontation and the nonsense you run into when you're a CEO. CEOs aren't born.