Keeping it Real, from Some of the Busiest (and Calmest) People on the Planet
In the second of our themed reports from our CEOâs Silicon Valley Summit, we take a look at your most limited resource: time. Staying open, accessible and grounded can be hard for the successful CEO. So how do you keep time for your executive team, the wider company and your own headspace when all around you are losing theirs? We got the answers from some of the busiest people on the planet.
Itâs worth mentioning that every single one of our guest speakers â collectively responsible for creating $200bn of shareholder value â arrived on time. No rushed late entries, no buzzing phones, no bag-carrying flunkies. An almost eerie calm surrounded the busiest of them. So whatâs their secret?
Jeff Weiner (LinkedIn), Dave de Walt (FireEye) and Steve Lucas (Marketo) talked animatedly about the need to stay accessible and grounded as a CEO.
Steve Lucas pulled no punches: âI have an almost violent annoyance with CEOs who are inaccessible, too busy being âstrategicâ. Some people re-write stories about themselves like theyâre Kim Jong Il.â
The more Zen-like Jeff Weiner has been described as âaccessible and down- to-earthâ, but he doesnât see this as a compliment â to him itâs a requirement. Yes, the CEO manifests the companyâs purpose, but that shouldnât make him beyond reach. Every other Wednesday at 10am, Jeff holds a full company meeting with the whole of LinkedInâs staff, broadcast globally. His thousands of employees consistently vote it the top âdonât-ever-changeâ company event. Steve Lucas reflected this attitude, sharing with us the remit heâs given his Chief of Staff: to ensure he walks the line between executing on agenda and staying accessible. âKeep me real, not elevated or self-effected,â is Steveâs request.
Joni Reicher received a similar directive whilst HR Director at Apple. âI need you to be the person,â said her boss, Tim Cook , âwho stops me and says âEmperor, you are wearing no clothesâ â.

Joni Reicher talks about the importance of accessibility.
Good CEOs actually spend very little time running the company, said Dave de Walt. They do however, spend a lot of time with the people who are running it. Dave recalled the time CEO Coach and Octopus Venture Partner John Hamm gave him the unusual gift of a minerâs helmet, complete with headlamp. The message was: all you need to do as CEO is make sure youâre shining your attention in the right place at the right time.
John Hamm himself had more to say on the matter of time and attention. He framed it in terms of a CEOâs authority: âAuthority is a currency that must be judiciously spent, or it loses its value. Get the right people in the room, asking the right questions at the right time.â John went on to point out that a CEOâs bodily presence shouldnât be essential for a meeting or a process to happen. Ideas of omnipotence and exclusive influence are not helpful (echoing Steve Lucasâs North Korean reference).
Tom Reilly proved this point. He came to meet us despite the fact that his company, Cloudera, was merging with Hortonworks, literally as he was speaking, resulting in a combined equity value of $5.2bn. It hit the press the following day.
Tom doesnât work weekends. âIf Iâm doing 14 hour days, what am I working on? If Iâm spending time on marketing or sales it tells me I donât have the right person in that role aligned with our strategy .â Tom rarely runs any of âhisâ meetings which, he says, frees him up to participate, rather than oversee. He agreed with John Hammâs point about bodily presence, or the lack of it: âMeetings should run without me. My role is to align and empower and thatâs it.â
Lily Kanter (of American retail institution Serena & Lily) spoke to us about focus. She called out entrepreneurs for their tendency to be frenetic ideas-generators. The discipline of focus serves the energetic, time-poor entrepreneur well. Lily also talked about her team. Her preference is for a VP to be a âplayer-coachâ â both a team builder and a team player. A Head of Marketing, for example, strong on analytics, should have their sleeves rolled up, âdoingâ analytics. This frees her, as founder CEO, to be the focused visionary.
Melissa Taunton of NEA (one of the worldâs leading venture funds with $35bn capital under management) described what success and growth actually looks like: âIt means your company will be unrecognisable in 12 months time, and again 12 months after that.â Navigating this rate of change, sustainably, requires both feet firmly on the ground, keeping time available for clear,
directive thinking.
Melissa, along with all of our guest speakers, departed as calmly as sheâd arrived, personifying a balance of efficiency and effectiveness.
In our next post weâll look at the theme of motivation and weâll hear about Dave de Waltâs hierarchy of needs: fun, learning and money â in that order.
âYou read about it in the books, but it comes to life when you hear it from the people who did itâââand it worked.â
Noor ShakerâââCEO and Founder of GTN, an Octopus Portfolio
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