Shouldering the blame

I’ve been a bit annoyed at Twitter today with all the couch CEOs blasting founders and executives for “mismanaging companies”. The arguments are typically the same, saying that CEOs forgot that the point of starting a company is to make money and their hiring was a product of greed.

While I agree that anything that Founders/CEOs should take the blame for any issues with the company as that’s part and parcel of the job, I absolutely hate the simplified narratives that many people love to put out there. Most of these people are those that have never started or helped run a company.

Starting and running a company is absolutely difficult. Often you see a window of opportunity and it’s your job to go after that full speed. There’s almost always pressure from employees, investors, and the board to grow the company.

Many seem to like to pull the hindsight card here but in reality, most would have made the same decisions as these Founders/Execs/CEOs.