E168: How I Coach The Top 0.1% CEO's in Silicon Valley w/Alexis John d'Amecourt

Alexis John d'Amecourt is the coach behind some of the most iconic CEOs in tech today—including the founders of Substack, Eigenlayer, and Booksy. In this episode of How I Invest, I sat down with Alexis to explore what really makes great CEOs tick—and what causes them to fall apart. We talked about how founders can build trust, navigate emotional turbulence, lead organizations as they scale, and get unstuck when things feel overwhelming. Alexis also opened up about his own story—from being raised by his grandmother in D. C. after a turbulent childhood to becoming a three-time founder turned executive coach. This conversation is packed with tactical frameworks, powerful analogies, and a ton of heart.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  There's this misconception out there that CEOs show some anger sometimes.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  You know, they gotta rattle some chains. And I see it a lot of times with younger CEOs who believe that that's the persona they should have. And I'm saying is, you know, a lot of times, especially with those tech, I point out to them that when you get angry with someone, you usually have to go back and apologize. I've worked with over 80 CEOs and I watched how the most successful do it there. And I've never seen any of them go ballistic on people and scream at people to get them to move. I work with such good people, CEOs who are just really good people. Four of my first five clients I ever had, I still work with them. And so I'm watching them grow orgs from 11 people to 50 to 100 to 150.

• 0:51Speaker 00

  One of them has 3,500 employees. Still the same guy. It's good to see.

• 0:57David Weisburd?

  Today, I'm excited to welcome Alexis Damacor, Head of Coaching at Mochrie Method, and trusted advisors, some of Silicon Valley's most dynamic CEOs and founders. Alexis has spent over two decades as a three-time founder, C-suite leader, and now as a coach behind leaders at companies like Substack, Agent Layer, Booksea, and more. In this episode, Alexis shares a rare inside look at how he helps top executives get unstuck from their biggest problems. We'll dive into his frameworks for navigating high-stakes decisions, his approach to blending personal and professional growth, and what he's learned from coaching the leaders shaping today's tech landscape. Alexis, welcome to the How I Invest podcast.

• 1:38David Weisburd?

  Alexis, you coach some of the top CEOs and executives on the planet. Brag a little bit about your clientele and some of their accomplishments.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  First and foremost, let me brag about them this way. They genuinely care about their colleagues. They're good human beings. They are really absolutely smart. They're absolutely focused. But I'd say the one thing is they've really figured out how to balance that focus on product for customers with also being good people and also balancing having a family. At Substack, I coached Chris Best, who's the CEO. Substack is now in the zeitgeist. It's everywhere. And he's still just excited about his kids and their performance at school, which he shares. Let's highlight a third, Sharam Khanan from Eigenlayer.

• 2:30Speaker 00

  I've been working with him from the very first day of their startup. And the best photo I have of him is not the one with all of his engineers that are everyone. It's him holding his daughter who has the mouse ears on because he got to take her to Disneyland. And those are good people and it's nice to work with those good people.

• 2:49David Weisburd?

  And why would the CEO of Substack or Eigenlayer or Booksy need coaching? And who is coaching really for when it comes to executives?

• 2:59Speaker 00

  Now, coaching is, coaching is everywhere. I think for CEOs, though, it's a little bit different. It's like, look, CEOs have their exec teams. But they can't really go to their exec teams with everything. They have their investors. Sometimes they go to their investors and their investors are like, hey, look, I want a 10x return. They go to their board, their board looks at them and goes, that's great. However, let me tell you how I used to do this. And what happens is everyone they go to has an agenda. And so what I like to say is, look, I just don't have an agenda with you. And two, if you tell me something, you're not going to have that awkward moment of seeing me two hours later at the kid in the kitchen or at by the water cooler.

• 3:43Speaker 00

  And you're like, hey, how's it going? I just told you this thing, that's this vulnerable moment I had that I'm working through. So I also feel like, look, the best athletes in the world have coaching.

• 3:57Speaker 00

  I believe that, you know, there are skill sets, we're building skills. No one's born a true leader. No one's born with all the answers. So sometimes if they're practicing with me, sometimes what they're doing is they're saying, I have these personas I wear. I have these preconceived notions or I'm just, I'm just scared. And so I'm a person, I feel like I'm in the corner with them in a boxing ring. And sometimes I'm just, I'm like, you know, fixing that cut. I'm giving them some encouragement. Sometimes I'm just listening to them so they can kind of purge it out of their system. So I think everyone in that high pressure role.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  Is learning how to be a leader, a manager. And there's one other aspect to this as well is that it's not always, you don't pick up a skill and then that's it, you have it forever. There are going to be times when you go back below the line and you need someone there who says, you know what, I'm only invested in you. I'm not invested in the success of the company. You know, I don't have the equity here. So I'm only invested in you. So I'm going to point out these things. And they appreciate that. And I think that's a big reason why CEOs need a CEO coach.

• 5:11David Weisburd?

  You mentioned a lot of top athletes have coaches. There's obviously famous cases like Tiger Woods with a swinging coach or Shaquille O'Neal with his free throw coach or boxing coach. But which athletes actually have a overall coach? And talk to me about that within the field of athletics and what are the best practices there?

• 5:30Speaker 00

  Such a good question.

• 5:33Speaker 00

  I think what they need as well is someone who goes, look, I'm going to look at your skill. I'm going to look at your technique, but I'm not going to help you with your mindset. And, you know, look, when top athletes, CEOs, sometimes are going into an offsite, a board meeting, an all hands, or they have to have a critical conversation with somebody. You know, they're kind of like this fight or flight feeling. Sometimes they need somebody else to just say, hey, have you thought of this? Or remember, it's not about you. It's about this. So that's why I think that corresponds well with top athletes who are going into maybe, you know,

• 6:18Speaker 00

  a big game. You just need someone to say, hey, these are the things to focus on. Don't worry about the rest of this. Or let's put something around you, a framework that allows you to focus on the priorities and not those secondary things.

• 6:32David Weisburd?

  Sometimes it's just really good as a business leader to have someone in your corner that has no conflict of interest, but yet has high vested interests. It's kind of a paradox. Is is coaching just a euphemism for therapy? How does coaching differ from therapy? And is it just another packaging?

• 6:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, many of my CEOs have therapists. And there's a moment when they start revealing things to me where I'll say, you know, I'm not a therapist. Right? And they're like, I get it. So I I focus on the two areas I know. Right? I'm a three time CEO who, you know, I founded three companies and I successfully drove all those companies off of cliffs. So I've learned I'm also a husband and a dad. And I've made my fair share of mistakes as a husband and as a dad. So I can share my own experience and I'm wildly curious.

• 7:35Speaker 00

  So I love going to find answers about things. So I think that comes back to the point of this is how I can help CEOs.

• 7:43David Weisburd?

  It's not that just that coaching is a euphemism for therapy. It's actually a disparate practice.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Absolutely. I mean, look, we have frameworks. Look, at the end of the day, I'm trying to help a CEO build an organization that will deliver a product to customers. Right?

• 8:00Speaker 00

  I'm not there to really. I'm not there to delve deeply into their psyche, into their childhood. I will share some of my experiences and how as to open up and be vulnerable and say, look, I'm going to show you an example of how either I screwed it up when I was a CEO or what I've seen from others. But here's my background, right? And it's also a way to connect with people. Right? So I use that, but I'm not on a long term arc of saying, I'm going to take you from childhood trauma to adult. I always keep one foot firmly in the fact that. We're trying to get your company to be as successful as possible.

• 8:43David Weisburd?

  Tell me about the problems that CEOs face. Are they fundamentally different problems when there are 10 employees, 100 employees, 800 employees? And talk to me about how the nature of problems change as a company scales.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  When you start a company, you're a founder, you're like an explorer, you're an adventurer. You're like, you know what? It's not there and I'm going to make it happen. Right? You go into it with a lot of confidence and hubris and like almost arrogance. You're like, I'm going to make something new. I think it takes a different breed of person. So they start a company. Usually what they do is they go, oh, you know, I worked with this person who's really smart. I'm going to bring them on. Or, you know, my roommate in college was fantastic at this one thing I'm not good at. So I'm going to bring them on. So you're 10 people. Most of them are people like either who took that leap of faith with you

• 9:38Speaker 00

  or are part of that startup culture who will go, I don't have anywhere else to go. So this sounds like a good place to go. So you're in this kind of battle for survival constantly. But then you transition out of that, you find product market fit and you start realizing some of these people who started with me aren't actually, you know, able to grow with the company. So you know what I'm going to do? We have a bunch of funding. People are telling me we're going to be huge. I'm going to go hire that person from Microsoft. Yes, we have 15 employees. Let me go see if I can hire that senior VP with 22 years' experience at Microsoft. And then what you find is they get in there because actually that person has their own agenda.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  And their agenda was, you know what? I was at Microsoft. I wasn't promoted fast enough. I'm really awesome. I want to be at a company now. I'm going to show everyone that I can do it on my own. And then they get into there and they realize that it's a completely different mentality. The startup mentality, right? Is that there is no framework. It is flying by the seat of your pants. There is no like, what are the policies? And oftentimes it's, you know, we're going to work all night. Well, no, I have to go home. You know, my wife, we have twins. And so there's that, there's that fit that kind of deteriorates over time.

• 11:04Speaker 00

  So what then I say is you then bring in some people who have, who love that stage, that ten to a hundred stage. And they have self-awareness that that is the stage. Then when you get to eight hundred employees, that's the time when you bring in people who have run big orgs that don't need so much hand, handholding. It's more a kind of bigger picture. And they've seen a lot of issues. They know how to, they have their own frameworks. Nothing surprises them anymore and they're ready to take it. But they also, they're at a certain stage of their career. And what I've seen a lot of times is they're at a stage of the career, they at eight hundred people and above, they, this is their time to make their big mark. This is when either they're making retirement money

• 11:50Speaker 00

  or they're like, you know, this is, I want to accomplish that big thing in my career. And this is it.

• 11:57David Weisburd?

  CEOs come to you with their hairiest problems. How do you go about getting CEOs unstuck on specific problems?

• 12:04Speaker 00

  First thing I ask them to do is where are you emotionally? Where are you in your head right now? What I want to see is, what I want to sense is, are they in flight? Fight or flight or freeze? Where are they, where are they in their head? Meaning, are they in their amygdala? Which means, you know, they're back in, you know, on the Serengeti. They're either sprinting away from that, I don't know, wildebeest? Or they're going to attack it, right? But when you're in that part of your mind, you are, you're not open to creative thinking. You're, you're reacting. So what I try to do is I shift them away from that.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  So once you shift them away, and it's either through acknowledging what emotions you're feeling right now.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  Describing what the problem is, taking a moment to calm down because calmness is contagious. Is then I have a framework, which is a simple thing called issue, propose, solution. So what we start doing is let's break down the issue. What simply, what is the issue?

• 13:15Speaker 00

  So let's block out all the noise and start typing out that issue. And I have them do it on Zoom. So we're sharing something, they're typing out the issue. And then I asked them, what I think is the critical question, which is, how did you contribute to this issue? And it's because so often CEOs are like, oh, you know what? It was my head of engineering. It was my that, that, that. But I go, hey, I'm going to press you and I'm challenging you. How did you contribute to this? And so usually upon that reflection is a lot of what the solution to that issue is. So then we write out a proposed solution, break it down into actions. And then I ask them to do the very first action, just start.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  Because attitude follows action. And so once they start doing the actual work, I've seen the transformation. Three weeks ago, I had a CEO who's in a series B, was closing a series B. And his lead investor had two questions for him. And he was literally in a state of panic. You and me, we saw those questions, we would have been like, uh, that one's a yes. And the second one is two sentences. But he was carrying so much more. He was like, you know, four months I've been working on this. I can't believe I've been away from the product and that, that, that. And I just said, you know, it took about 20 minutes to get him out of that state.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  And I said, just answer those two questions. Let's start with the first one. He typed it out and it really was, he typed out the word yes. And then the second one he did a, you know, I said, just where are you mentally? He wrote it all out and I said, let's send it to him. And I mean, David, the lift, the emotional.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  heaviness that was around him just lifted and he actually, within a minute, was cracking jokes. And it was, it was the most remarkable thing.

• 15:11David Weisburd?

  Sometimes you just need somebody by your side, helping you, guide you through your process that you trust and that you feel like you could rely on.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Absolutely. We all go through it. The irony here is that right before this podcast, I was on a coaching call with someone who I, a CEO that I greatly admire. I've been to his offsites and I sit next to him at offsites while he speaks to the whole company. And afterwards, he comes to me and goes, what did you see? And I told him all these things, like, oh, this and you're sad. And then today, he was like, you have a kind of frenetic energy about you today. What's going on? I was like, I'm on a podcast soon. I got a little amped up and he started repeating back what I've told him, which was, I'll tell you one of the main things. Put both your feet on the ground, plant them firmly. So you're solidly planted. Put your

• 16:03Speaker 00

  hands in your pocket, or not your pockets, in your lap and look straight ahead, straight back. So I'm doing that right now.

• 16:10David Weisburd?

  There's this concept in psychology called verbal processing, where you're basically just having somebody listen to your problem could help you solve the problem for yourself. What percentage of the time are you just helping CEOs verbally process versus being more prescriptive and do this or do that?

• 16:29Speaker 00

  I don't have an exact process there. It's an intuitive feel. You know, you're just watching someone and you know, sometimes it's 30 seconds to help them get out of it. Sometimes it's 20 minutes. But I do generally want them to describe what's happening and then move on to something that's more kind of a framework, a tactical framework. Let's put stuff down on paper. But you're absolutely right. If you speak it out, the solution kind of appears.

• 17:01David Weisburd?

  Some of your clients are some of the top young CEOs in Silicon Valley. They're these 25 year old geniuses, the next Mark Zuckerberg, the next Evan Spiegel. How do you go about coaching people just starting out their career in their early or mid twenties? And how they go about building real large organizations? How do you help them through that?

• 17:22Speaker 00

  There's that myth of like, they're 22, they're 25 years old, they're brilliant engineer and

• 17:32Speaker 00

  Leadership and management are something that they don't have a skill set and they'll never have it. So this is what I see. When they're 25 years old, they've been engineering probably for 10 years. If you put anyone in a management leadership role for 10 years, they're gonna get good at it. So I tell them that. Look, you've only been doing this job, this leadership one, for two years. You've been an engineer for 10 years. You had tremendous skill, but you didn't start off that way. But you spend thousands of hours doing this. That's what we're doing here. Two, what I've seen is, look, a corporate CEO moves up the

• 18:11Speaker 00

  ranks. They've had 25 years of training, leadership courses, offsites. So they're going up it through the ranks and they've had mentorship. So what I try to show them is, like, look, here are other CEOs who are at the same stage as you, and these are the mistakes they made. These are their concerns. And again, it, you know, it's about taking those concrete, actionable steps to grow those management muscles. Also, sometimes I tell them, look, just go be founder. You love the product, you love engineering. Go in there and have fun with that. And I also tell them, look, you're not the first CEO to have this issue. And again, when they hear that, they go, oh,

• 18:53Speaker 00

  are you really? I'm not. It's so obvious that they're not. But sometimes they just need to hear, hey, you're not alone. And oh, they love hearing about, did this unicorn CEO have that issue? I mean, some of them are like, look, part of your coaching, please tell me others have had this problem. I'm like, absolutely. I had it three times.

• 19:13David Weisburd?

  Sometimes they're looking to outsource their courage or their hope to a coach.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  I like to think they have that courage and hope inside them, but they're fixated on one issue. They're fixated on a persona they're supposed to have of invincibility. There's also another, here's another myth. They walk in, they think they have to have all the answers. And once you tell them, no, you don't have to have all the answers. In fact, that's why you're building an organization, because you don't have the answers and you have to go to others. And so, once they go, wait a minute, I don't have to come in with every answer. I'm like, no, in fact, tell them you don't have any answers. Help me. People will open up and they'll trust you even more.

• 19:58David Weisburd?

  There's this non-controversial belief in Silicon Valley that the main function of a CEO is to lead, to fundraise and to storytell. But yet, the way that Silicon Valley companies are set up, the CEO is also the chief operator and the chief manager. And there's not really a decoupling practically. Talk to me about that. Should a CEO also be the chief manager? And, you know, what are the pros and cons of that organizational structure?

• 20:33Speaker 00

  This is how I've explained it to CEOs. You have to be able to manage yourself first. So it's concentric circles around you. If you can manage yourself, that's the first step. Then learn how to manage those you talk to every day. Experiment. Be vulnerable with them. Build trust. And then the third circle is lead your company. So this thought that they have to be operators, the thought that they have to have all the answers, as I mentioned earlier, is a myth. And as soon as they become comfortable with that, that they don't have all the answers,

• 21:14Speaker 00

  that they can go out and they can ask their colleagues for help. It transforms them into going, okay, what am I good at? Why am I hiring others? So I had this really interesting moment early on in my coaching career with a CEO. It was during an offsite and their company was about 25 people. He had built the original architecture for the, for the software they were building. But he had been focusing on fundraising and the other parts of being a CEO. And he said to, he looked around the room and he goes, I'm no longer the best engineer at this company. You know, it was just kind of dislocation. And then he goes, wait, I don't even think.

• 22:00Speaker 00

  I think every engineer in my company is better than me. And he started tearing up. And it was like he had lost or he had realized that this kind of moment that in that moment, he realized that the thing that had he had always carried around there was this fantastic engineer. He didn't have that any longer. But at the same time, he went, wait, this is a good thing. It's good. I should be in a room filled with people who are better than me.

• 22:28Speaker 00

  And of course, I started pumping my fist. I was like, that's that was coaching.

• 22:33David Weisburd?

  There's this paradox that if you're doing the right job and hiring people that are better than you, at some point you go through this existential crisis of what is my purpose? If everybody is better than me, everybody's better at sales, everybody's better at engineering, everyone's better at product, product development. There's this kind of paradoxical situation that the best founders find themselves in.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  I think the best founders retain that, that belief that they have the vision for the company. And it's when, you know, it's when they stop pushing the company. And then when they stop pointing out kind of the navigation or where they need to go. Yeah, I think that's when they finally decide they need to step down. They don't have that passion for the vision. Come on, that's, you know, it's still, it comes down to we build product for customers who want them. And if you lose that, then you're not a CEO anymore.

• 23:33David Weisburd?

  I think a lot of founders also underappreciate, even though they might not be the best engineer or the best salesperson, they do, they are that unique unicorn in that they have a little bit of, of everything. So they might be, you know, horizontally have many different skills, maybe not all hundred out of a hundred, but they uniquely have all those skills that takes to build a company and to lead a company from the front.

• 23:59Speaker 00

  There are two types of CEOs. There's the founder CEO and the founder CEO, like I said earlier, they're explorers, they're adventurers. They are going in uncharted waters. And they have to have the belief in themselves and the belief in the product. So they focus really, they're, they're, they're so laser focused on the product, product, product, product. That's great. Let's get the product perfect. Let's keep it innovating that product. And then the second type of CEO still does, you know, is very important, but they've come up through the org and they become sure that they know the product's important, but the company becomes their product. The running of the company becomes the product. And I think that's the difference, you know, this is founder mode, which is I'm obsessed

• 24:45Speaker 00

  about our product. And then older companies, more mature companies, were obsessed about the operating of our company. And, you know, my whole thing is, look, um, I love the founder focus on the product.

• 25:02David Weisburd?

  When you look at the companies that are most successful, what percentage of the CEOs are using carrots, kind of upside and vision versus the stick and kind of the, the risk of losing out? Some of the most productive organizations in history like GE or Goldman Sachs routinely fired the bottom 10% that worked for those organizations. Talk to me about the best practices and startups and whether it's the carrot or the stick that really drives the power law outcomes.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  Let me talk about that kind of, um, Jack Welsh, um, and Mark Zuckerberg theory of, hey, every year we cut the bottom 10%, bottom 20%. Look, most of the companies I work with have under 500 employees. Many of these CEOs know who's been hired. They know who they're going to be letting go. They take it deeply personally when they know, but they also, they already come to the table knowing this. If they have that kind of, um, if they make those sweeping layoffs of the bottom 10%, they know that these people who are people who pay mortgages, who are real people. Then have to go back out in the workforce and say, yeah, I left this company that has this

• 26:18Speaker 00

  policy of the top bottom 20% leaving. So that it's like they have a scarlet letter. So what I advise CEOs is, hey, look, when you're firing someone, it's not their fault. It's your fault. You either hired them and they didn't really have a clear understanding of what they needed to do. You let them into the company. So if you have to fire them, that's really on your shoulders. What are you going to do to help them get to a position that where they're going to thrive? You know, give them a good severance to help them until they get their next job. Be their biggest advocate. So that's what I see is like, look, it's not carrot and

• 27:00Speaker 00

  stick. It's rather, um, where were you responsible? How were you responsible for hiring someone that didn't work out at your company? Was it a culture? Was it during the interview process? Was it, did you, did you not do a good job anti-selling them? I mean, did you tell them, did they come in thinking they were going to work 30 hours a week, but every engineer works 80 hours a week? Um, were there misaligned expectations? Did you hire someone who only worked in an org that had 5,000 people and you're a 20-person startup? So I put the onus back on to the CEO. I do that a lot, which I say, how are you contributing to this issue?

• 27:40David Weisburd?

  Double click on this concept of anti-selling and what are some examples?

• 27:44Speaker 00

  Anti-selling is internally at our company, we'll say things like, look, if you're not open to feedback, this is not the right place for you. If you're, uh, not willing to share your vulnerabilities, if you're not willing to open up and be there for your clients, this is not the right place for you. Um, and so there are those moments where I think the CEO has to be, or anyone hiring, has to go through an anti-selling phase of going, look, this is the reality of our company. Man, we're fanatical about product. We, we got people who come in on Saturdays because they love to be here. But if that's not the culture you want, then this is where you shouldn't be.

• 28:28Speaker 00

  Look, I have a CEO who makes the same joke all the time. Right? He makes the same thing. And he goes, you know what? I'm really comfortable with making that joke. It's not an off color joke, but it's the same joke. And he says, it just pops in his head. And he goes, if you don't like that joke, I'm sorry, I'm going to keep on saying it. So when they enter the company or when they're there for a couple of months, they're like, you're saying the same joke. They were warned. And again, it's not offensive. But it's like saying, I'm going to tell you a chicken cross the road joke all the time. Okay, there you are.

• 29:04David Weisburd?

  We went kind of the bottom 10, 20%. Let's go to the top 10%. What are some characteristics that you know immediately? This is a top 10% player. What are some telltale early signs?

• 29:16Speaker 00

  Number one, number two, number three, this is it.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  They can solve multi-step problems.

• 29:23Speaker 00

  That's it, right there. You're, you know, it's going to be about 10 to 20% of your org, or maybe 10 to 20 people out of your 500 person org, who you can trust can do multi-step problems. There's going to be another portion that can do one step problems. You say, hey, here's a problem. They can figure that one step out. Great. And then there are others who need to be, who are more successful when you tell them, here are the steps you have to take and they execute on it.

• 29:54David Weisburd?

  Let's double kick on the motivation of the top 10%. Do they have to be managed? Or do you have to just align incentives and then they kind of manage themselves? Is managing someone or having to manage them a sign of a non-top 10% performer?

• 30:08Speaker 00

  It's.

• 30:11Speaker 00

  So when I hear you say that, I think of it like this. I. I think they haven't developed as a manager. They don't have the experience yet. So when you're looking at senior manager, a senior leader at a company, you'd be surprised of how vulnerable they are, how aware they are of their skills, where their deficiencies are,

• 30:36Speaker 00

  how much joy they have in what they're doing, right? They also know how to set up boundaries.

• 30:42Speaker 00

  And I think, you know, they're able to have conversations with the CEO or whoever their their manager is. And they set boundaries from the beginning. They have that kind of experience and confidence, to speak that way. I think what happens, though, when you have people who are more inexperienced in an organization, they tend to,

• 31:07Speaker 00

  they tend to do as they're told

• 31:12Speaker 00

  and not ask questions about how to do it or express their own feelings about what they're doing.

• 31:20David Weisburd?

  Thank you for listening. To join our community and to make sure you do not miss any future episodes, please click the follow button above to subscribe. One of the things that, because you always have to be conscious of your weight as the leader of a company and how people will oftentimes take you literally. And one of the things I try to always instill is I'm going to ask you to do something and I'm going to tell you how I think I should do it, but there's probably smarter ways to do it. And don't take me literally, take, take me figuratively in that this is what I want to accomplish, not this is how I want you to do it.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  The CEO is the loudest voice in the room. CEO says something and their exact team, anyone there is going to go, oh, you know what? I hadn't thought of that. And I think that's the right answer. So what I advise CEOs to do is be the last to share your opinion. So you may write it up and you may be doing a, you know, a ridden brainstorm,

• 32:15Speaker 00

  but paste it in last. So people read that last. Because what you'll find is even the most confident, capable executive will go, well, you know what? I see some point in yours and I'll show that. So that's what I say. I also say to new CEOs, especially as every time you walk in the room, everywhere, someone's going to look over you and be like, there's the CEO. And they can't help but look over and think, are they noticing me? This is it. The, the, your presence is always felt. Three, I recommend CEOs phrase their requests this way. Would you be willing to do X? Because when we tell people to do something, they immediately go, wait, should I or should I not?

• 32:59Speaker 00

  I don't know. Okay, but you're the CEO. I have to do it. So it's comes from the old concept of command and control. You know, fifty years ago, it was hierarchical and the boss said, do it and you did it. So now, though, it's not that we don't want our employees and we want to give them a bunch of choice. And we want to say, hey, if you feel like it or not, no, but what we are saying is, hey, would you be willing to do this? Gives people a moment to go, yeah, I I would like to do that for you.

• 33:31David Weisburd?

  What are some common mistakes that the most experienced or the smartest CEOs make when it comes to managing their employees?

• 33:39Speaker 00

  A big issue there is the concept of, you know, what are you doing with anger and fear? Is fear giving you bad advice? And so a lot of times they will get stuck in a concept that they're listening to fear and it's holding them back from doing something. And what I've found again and again, and I'll make a wager with you, is that fear gives you really bad advice because you're still in the Serengeti and you're like, I must run. But in the boardroom or in that executive meeting, it's actually that fear is giving you bad advice and actually, usually, a hundred and eighty degree change will help you with that. So it's usually the opposite will happen.

• 34:21Speaker 00

  The other thing I find is with anger is that there's this misconception out there that CEOs should show some anger sometimes. You know, they got to rattle some chains. And I see it a lot of times with younger CEOs who believe that that's the persona they should have. And I'm saying is, you know, a lot of times, especially with those tech CEOs, and not the technology business, but like the engineer CEOs, I point out to them that when you get angry with someone, you usually have to go back and apologize. And how much time does that take? And you should see them, they go, wait, yeah, wait, I had this scheduled meeting that was fifteen minutes, forty five minutes to go apologize.

• 35:05Speaker 00

  Like, and that's forty five minutes of time and you're so productive. They're like, oh, yeah, you're right. I shouldn't get angry at people because it will take me forty five minutes later to apologize. Like, it's one way to think of it. So to answer your question,

• 35:22Speaker 00

  yeah, I think a lot of CEOs stumble on those, how to handle their emotions.

• 35:28David Weisburd?

  Play devil's advocate, some of the top managers, most famously Steve Jobs, and they have these really high bars. And anger or a break in rapport has been a way to continuously increase that bar. Talk me through when the best practice is kind of this Steve Jobs type of approach versus more collaborative approach? And when should a CEO use one or the other?

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Think we're falling into that habit or we're falling into that thing, which is here are these mythical figures in tech. And we've read these stories, you know, the Walter Isaacson book, or we've watched the movie about Steve Jobs and we're like, oh, he just yelled at people. He got them to do the greatest work of their lives. But these are at times fictional accounts. I I'm not sure how he did it. But I've worked with over eighty CEOs and I watch how the most successful do it there. And I've never seen any of them go ballistic on people and scream at people to get them to move. I think in this day and age, especially with remote, people will go, I'm out of here. If you're gonna, you're gonna scream at me?

• 36:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, they want someone, they they want a leader. That puts them in a position to work on really cool, really cutting edge things. But when you get, when you lose your mind on someone, it sends them into a panic. And I don't believe they're going to do their best work. So again, I sell, say to CEOs, if you do that, you want, will break a lot of, you'll, you'll break trust with them. And they'll look at you every time and think, and is that person going to snap at me? And then two, they're going to go, look, with remote work, um, I'm one click away from a job for working for somebody who will support me, will push me,

• 37:22Speaker 00

  but will not destroy me. And people are much more likely today to go, I can find something else. I'm not going to put up with that.

• 37:31David Weisburd?

  There's a subtlety there where you don't necessarily want to go yell and go ballistic. But there is room to say, look, you could do better. Here's ways to think about it. This isn't good enough. Let's focus on how to make this better in a cool and, and calm demeanor versus going ballistic, which puts somebody in that fight or flight, uh, amygdala like response that keeps them from achieving their best work.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  Absolutely. I see it all the time.

• 37:58David Weisburd?

  Do, do you see room for, for challenging and bringing out the best in people by asking them to do better? By really asking them to expand on their current capacity?

• 38:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, people are, people want to produce great work. I believe at this level, these kind of very competitive, uh, startups who have vast potential. People want to work with really strong colleagues who push them to the best work possible. It's never just a CEO saying, you know what? This is where we need to be. You need a peer structure at your company of high achievers. Because you want to look around and go, I'm working with fantastic people. This motivates me to do the work. These talented people, I'm curious, I want to learn and grow from them.

• 38:50Speaker 00

  And so they'll filter themselves out of a company because they go, this is where I want to be. I want to be around people who are as ambitious as me, who are smart, who are curious, who want to succeed. And so that's what I see. It's not just the CEO setting the bar. It's your colleagues as well. It's walking down the hall and going, oh, this is interesting. This person was also stayed up on Friday nights trying to find an answer to this. So I want to be around those kinds of people.

• 39:18David Weisburd?

  I had an argument with my fiance, Jessica, and I told her some things that rubbed me the wrong way or that that I didn't like. And in return, she retaliated by telling me that the things that she didn't like. And my response to her, first of all, you know, it was not easy. It hurt my ego and I had to recover. But I told her, I want you to tell me how I could be better. Like, yes, it does sting, but I want to be better. You're not punishing me by telling me to be better. Maybe it hurts for 24 hours, but that is the price of growth. I think the price of growth is where we egotistically are today. And then it gets, there's pain about the the gap between where we think

• 40:00David Weisburd?

  we are and where we really are. And that is the growth. So I think that is the cost of growth, this kind of brutal feedback that ideally is delivered in the right packaging and the right container. But sometimes, you know, that's more of a nice to have than a need to have.

• 40:17Speaker 00

  Can I coach you right now?

• 40:18David Weisburd?

  Yeah.

• 40:18Speaker 00

  Let's do some coaching.

• 40:20David Weisburd?

  Let's do it.

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Did you hear what she was saying?

• 40:25David Weisburd?

  I did hear it. Yeah. And

• 40:28Speaker 00

  But how did you hear it?

• 40:29David Weisburd?

  How did I hear it? I heard, you know, she gave me six pieces of feedback. It took me 30 seconds to process. I thought about it. I agreed with

• 40:40Speaker 00

  Did she feel, did she feel heard?

• 40:42David Weisburd?

  Yeah, yeah, she did. She had a really good experience from it. How do I know that? Or how did she feel heard?

• 40:48Speaker 00

  How did she feel heard?

• 40:49David Weisburd?

  She told me this was like, one of the best conversations we've had. Because I think she had been holding this in. So she delivered the six pieces of feedback. I immediately, or after 30 seconds.

• 41:01Speaker 00

  Let me stop you there. I'm going to say is, when, like, 30 years of being with my wife, we started dating in college, I got the keg for her 21st birthday party. That's how long we go back. So let me say this.

• 41:20Speaker 00

  The number one thing is when someone's giving you feedback, the first thing I do is I repeat it back to them.

• 41:28Speaker 00

  I advise all my CEOs to do this is just repeat it back because 80% of the time their colleagues just want to be heard. And it's so affirming when the CEO stops and goes, hey, so what I think I heard you say is boom, boom, boom. Doesn't have to be exactly it, but it has to be the gist of it. And then you ask the person, did I get that right? And it's just this moment of going, I wasn't judging you during that time. I was just listening and I'm gonna prove to you that I was listening. So you repeat it back to them. Now, I tell my CEOs to do this. If I try to do this to my wife too much, she's like, you take that voodoo coaching BS, you can take it right out of here.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  But there's sometimes when it does actually, it really does help. And then after I say, when she says, yes, you've heard me, I thank her for it. And then I also say, okay, this is what I'm gonna do. Or I accept your feedback or I don't, but this is what I'm gonna do. Because what I've learned about my wife is this, sometimes she wants a hug, sometimes she wants help, sometimes she just wants me to hear her. I've learned more and more over the years that it's usually she doesn't want my help. But as a guy, I usually go, oh, I can fix this. She's like, I don't need you to fix it. And it's often she just wants me to hear. And I find that with CEOs and their colleagues.

• 42:52Speaker 00

  The CEO hears you and is not preparing a defense or preparing to judge what you've just said, but he's gonna repeat it back. Man, that's so, so enriching, so affirming.

• 43:03David Weisburd?

  So the way that I handled it, she gave me these six pieces of advice. I more or less immediately agreed with three of those pieces. And I said, I'm aware of this. Thank you for making me even more aware of it. It is something I'm working on. It's not something that I'm proud of. I'm like, I'm on it. I disagreed with one or one of her pieces of feedback was only half the story. I agreed with that half, but I didn't, I said, there's also this part of that. And she agreed with that. She said, yeah, I was, you know, probably wasn't fair there. And the other two, I'm just like, let me think about that. And the reason I processed it in this way was because that was my honest position. I don't believe in just giving lip service. Somebody says something, you just agree with them.

• 43:46David Weisburd?

  I don't think that's good for the relationship either, if you don't believe it to be the case.

• 43:49Speaker 00

  So as I hear this, there's a couple of things I would have done is the three things you agree with. And you're like, look, I know this about myself. What actions are you taking? Does she know those actions?

• 43:59David Weisburd?

  Yeah.

• 43:59Speaker 00

  And do you go back and say, you know, in a couple of weeks, hey, I've been working on this. Just want to let you know that feedback you gave me. First of all, I so appreciate it in there. The one you didn't accept or need more, that's kind of like saying, I'd love to get or share the other side of the story or something more. Okay, that's fine. The two you need to come back to, would you be willing to say to her today or tomorrow? Hey, I've thought about this and I want to respond. I want to tell you. Or would you be willing to say, hey, I'm still thinking about this. Give me to the end of the week.

• 44:35David Weisburd?

  Yeah, absolutely. And we even talked about it this morning. We talked about how we, we both appreciated the feedback, how it both hurt, but was, was important to talk about. A lot of us, including myself, have seen a lot of nearly psychopaths, effective psychopaths, not murderers, but psychopaths. When it comes to seeing humans like objects and seeing them as numbers in a spreadsheet, become wildly successful. And it feels like if I was to hyperscale a company from 10 employees to 10,000 employees, some of that would be helpful in terms of being able to manage, just not having to manage the emotions that are coming in with that kind of growth and having to get rid of bottom performers, all these things.

• 45:20David Weisburd?

  You keep on repeating that they're good people. Isn't having a little psychopathy, maybe not, you know, true psychopath? Isn't that actually something that will enable somebody to grow faster? And if not, why not?

• 45:34Speaker 00

  You've mentioned psychopath a few times and.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  I've been thinking about this question because we talked about it before, but I've been thinking about this and I I think the psychopaths are more the types who are like, I came up through an organization. I had to step on people's

• 45:55Speaker 00

  shoulders and crush them as I went up because as I go up the ladder, I need to

• 46:03Speaker 00

  it's a zero sum game.

• 46:06Speaker 00

  I think CEOs, founders, we're talking about founders. I think it's a little bit different. It because they're so focused on the product, that's where they become psychotic is about the product. A lot of them come in, they don't care if they're, they have the title of CEO. A lot of them come in and go, yeah, we decided in the car ride, the Uber ride over to the VC's office. When they, and we knew they were going to ask who's going to be the CEO. And we're like, you're the CTO because you're really good at tech and you are operations. And I'm the one with the vision and I'm good at selling what we do. I'll be the CEO. Right? So they don't go in going, um, I want to be the CEO.

• 46:49Speaker 00

  I think a lot of them go into it and going, if you screw around with my product, I'll be psychotic.

• 47:00Speaker 00

  I wish I had a better answer for you.

• 47:02David Weisburd?

  Ego has become this thing that people openly talk about. One of my favorite books, my second favorite book ever, Ego is the Enemy by Ryan Holiday, really changed my thinking uh, in terms of how ego can be hurtful. In the same vein, I also see with my own eyes, ego oftentimes acts as a shield in very different, difficult environments. A couple of examples of that, Steve Jobs, obviously with Apple and forcing a new way of doing things, a new vision into the marketplace. Travis Kalanick at Uber, some might argue that that ultimately led to his demise, but it was certainly extremely effective for that industry.

• 47:45David Weisburd?

  Is there a place for ego? And should should an organization respect the CEO's ego? And should a CEO respect their own ego in order to align themselves with success?

• 47:57Speaker 00

  Ego, such a funny thing, isn't it? I mentioned earlier that look, among startup CEOs, you know, typically you need to have a healthy ego because you're going, look, I'm going to literally try to create something from nothing. There was not a company there, right? There's no origin story. It wasn't like, and 35 years ago, my brother and I started this company. No, out of nothing. So you have to have a certain amount of confidence. You know, it's even, one could say it's like audacity. And yes, I can build something new. And I think that's healthy ego. But there needs to be this delicate balance because,

• 48:37Speaker 00

  look, there's healthy sense of ego. And I think that's what you're talking about with Steve Jobs, who was like, I have a vision for a product. Let's go make this. And I think his ego, you know, where you saw this kind of this myth of his anger would come out when it's like, I want this product to be amazing. Right? So that's good. Um, I think when ego becomes destructive, it's when it's driven by something like insecurity. When CEOs become afraid to listen. When CEOs think that showing vulnerability is a weakness.

• 49:15Speaker 00

  Or when they become defensive when they, you know, they get feedback from people. And that's when they close down. So that's an unhealthy form of ego.

• 49:27Speaker 00

  The best CEOs I work with,

• 49:30Speaker 00

  they've learned to keep their egos in check. Either they have a kitchen cabinet of people who will tell them the truth or tell them things that they don't want to hear.

• 49:46Speaker 00

  They'll, you know, when they use their ego to inspire to take risks and also stay resilient. That's one of the key jobs of a CEOs, just be a founder to be resilient.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  But those with the healthiest egos surround themselves with, you know, great people who will give them feedback. And those with strong egos, they're willing to hear the uncomfortable truths and react to those. So I think that's the balance between healthy and destructive egos.

• 50:20David Weisburd?

  The way that I look at ego is it's a variable. It's kind of like part of the recipe of a successful startup and a successful founder. And it's all contextual. For example, if Travis is in the early days of Uber and taxi lobbies are trying to crush him. Corrupt politicians are trying to keep them out of markets. If it makes him feel better to fly first class versus in the main cabin. If that really makes that big difference so that he has more energy and more resources in order to take on the taxi lobby. I think that could be a positive thing. So I think there is a room for positive ego, especially when it's not destructive to an organization.

• 51:02David Weisburd?

  When it doesn't come at the expense of somebody else's ego or somebody else's productivity. But I do think we've overcorrected in terms of thinking that all ego is bad. Because if you look historically, the people that have really changed the world have had that extreme ego that they will be the ones that will make things different. Whether it's the Wright brothers had the boom CEO, the CEO of Boom Supersonic, who said, I'm going to bring back supersonic jets. For a while, probably people looked at him as the most egotistical guy, but he made it work. He had the staying power to see that through. So I do think there's been a little bit of overcorrection.

• 51:45David Weisburd?

  I also think there's this personality theater where people go around and tell investors how they're, they're flying in main cabin. How they're the last to talk and all these things, when in reality, if you were to follow them, that's not true. So there's this kind of virtue signaling when it comes to ego as well. That's diluting kind of the reality a bit.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  I think you're absolutely right. There are all these origin stories, right? You know, so and so is worth $7 billion, but I always fly economy. Right? And it's like, okay, that's your story. And then I've got others who were saying, I only fly private. I did seven hundred hours last year, but I had to fly to Sweden to talk this engineer and joining our team and nothing says, you know, um, join our team like showing up their doorstep the next day. Um, sure. What works for your company? What works for you?

• 52:39Speaker 00

  But going back to that original, which is ego gets in the way when you're not willing to listen to constructive feedback. Ego gets in the way when you think only your answer is the right answer. And ego gets in the way when you penalize those around you who you may not like their response, right? Um, you know, when it ego is covering up an insecurity. Yeah, that to me is false ego. Again, founders are a special breed. You know, when she goes, I'm gonna go build this company or build this around this product. And that's

• 53:21Speaker 00

  pretty cool. Um, and I think it takes a healthy amount of ego and audacity to be like, yeah, trust me, I'm gonna go build this company. Um, but I don't know about Travis. I don't know about Steve Jobs. I know from what I see with the CEOs I work with, and there's a healthy balance of ego. But there's also a little bit of glee in their eyes. Like, my God, let me go build this thing. And so let's focus on that, that they are, they're also fulfilling a need they have. And they're having fun with it, for the most part. So I like to focus on that.

• 53:56David Weisburd?

  Certainly, intrinsic motivation is so critical because there's so many years of not having positive feedback from the market of people thinking you're crazy. You have to enjoy your craft, whether that's because of ego, that's love for the product, that's love for your organization. You need to find some way to be intrinsically motivated every single day through going through a very difficult pursuit.

• 54:17Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Look, I have CEOs who, um, you know, they say, if I could just focus on the product and not the people, be so much easier. Yeah, that's true. Uh, but you need people around you.

• 54:34David Weisburd?

  So Alexis, you yourself have a remarkable story. Tell me about your own personal story and how that makes you a better coach.

• 54:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, so my story is kind of unique in the fact that I was, I was born in Spain to two kind of hippie-ish parents who were very good at making the kid. But the follow-through wasn't their forte. And so off I was shipped to my grandmother's doorstep in Washington DC. And my mother was, kind of trapped me on this doorstep and she wasn't around. And I saw her maybe 10, 15 times throughout my life. And my father, though, was, was around and I spent a lot of time with him.

• 55:22Speaker 00

  I was primarily raised by my grandmother until high school. And then I moved in with my father and my stepmother, who were very loving, wonderful. But I grew up in this kind of, look, I was abandoned. And when you're young, you go, I just want to be normal. I want, you know, the dream of the Noah's Ark of American prosperity. Two parents, two cars in the driveway, two pets, two siblings. I just want that. And it wasn't until, it's kind of my late twenties. I began to understand how deeply those experiences of being abandoned, of growing up in this, you know, being raised by my grandmother, who was an expat from Austria, who was a wonderful, amazing entrepreneur.

• 56:07Speaker 00

  But I was left alone a lot. And those early experiences shaped me. And the, how they carved these kind of deep furrows into my emotional landscape. And I found myself sharing these stories about how I was raised with people. I used to do it at, at business school. And I remember there would be a few people who would look at and go, oh, that's not me. And then I'd have so many more coming up to me and going, I share that background. I share that experience with you. And you start realizing, everyone carries these. Childhood experiences that have shaped who they are.

• 56:48Speaker 00

  And I realized just how these universal feelings of being different or unseen can be. And it became clear my story resonated with people. Because we all struggle with these things privately. And by opening up,

• 57:05Speaker 00

  I fostered a level of trust with people. And I also unburdened myself of something that I was ashamed of.

• 57:14David Weisburd?

  You shared the story on when we first chatted. Tell me about the power of vulnerability and how that helps you build connections with others.

• 57:24Speaker 00

  I've always felt like, look, everyone carries around some insecurity and some pain.

• 57:30Speaker 00

  Those moments can define us as humans. I think they define us actually more than any success can.

• 57:38Speaker 00

  And I share mine early with founders. Because that vulnerability establishes a real connection. And if I drop my mask and I share who I am. And, you know, look, one of the quickest ways I do that is by saying this kind of quip I have about my CEO career. Look, I'm a three-time founder and I successfully drove all those companies off of cliffs. And I would say about seventy-five percent of founders go, oh, yeah. And they laugh and they go, I know what that feels like. And twenty-five percent don't react. And so it's my way of opening up and being, look, and looking for genuine understanding and empathy.

• 58:18David Weisburd?

  And does that ever backfire, being so vulnerable and transparent about your background?

• 58:23Speaker 00

  It has a couple of times.

• 58:26Speaker 00

  And it used to hurt because I would say, I wouldn't understand. Like, are you reacting to me as a person?

• 58:34Speaker 00

  And I've just opened up, I was being vulnerable. Recently, I had a powerful clarifying moment around this, which was, you know, a CEO once told me openly, he had less respect for me after hearing my story. And that stung initially. But instead of retreating or becoming defensive, I faced it head on. And I asked him directly why he felt that way. And in that conversation, I realized he was reaching for the content and not the context of what I was sharing. The abandonment, the struggle, that's not what he was talking about.

• 59:11Speaker 00

  And I was reacting to his judgment of my vulnerability. Uh, that shifted everything for me is when I realized I could confidently and with curiosity and openness, ask him about that. I, I was able to turn that into an authentic connection with him. Um, which far outweighed the discomfort I initially felt.

• 59:33David Weisburd?

  When it comes to what's driving founders, the story is always this grand mission. My suspicion is that there, there is a lot of childhood drama. There is a lot of childhood trauma that's driving top founders. A lot of being unseen, being unappreciated, unloved. That leads them to take such incredible risks and go contrarian on a specific space.

• 1:00:00David Weisburd?

  What percentage of founders are trying to overcome this insecurity, this abandonment or lack of love in their childhood?

• 1:00:07Speaker 00

  Honestly, uh, probably about a hundred and fifty percent of them. It's a high number. Look, none of us arrives in adulthood perfectly polished. Right? We have baggage.

• 1:00:21Speaker 00

  What we went through in childhood, even if it has, you know, this kind of stereotypical or this, um, this, this, what society tells us is a perfect upbringing. I think it's human nature. We, we pick on, we pick up on things as we're, as we're, um, growing, as we're aging, things that are limiting to us.

• 1:00:44Speaker 00

  Even subtle moments shape us. And so this is true of founders.

• 1:00:51Speaker 00

  They have, look, you're right. They have outside drive, sometimes fueled by early feelings needing to prove themselves. The immigrant story, or they didn't get picked for 10th grade basketball and that's driven them. But what's fascinating to me is seeing founders who use these experiences to fuel their growth.

• 1:01:13Speaker 00

  And then when they're aware of it, they can channel it in ways that's productive.

• 1:01:21Speaker 00

  And they turn them into powerful motivators. So it's not just,

• 1:01:27Speaker 00

  they're not just mired in this kind of self-reflection, but rather the power of that awareness helps drive them to grow.

• 1:01:37David Weisburd?

  I find this 150% number is more or less correct within 10, 10 percentage points. But in seriousness, I do find that this drive is extremely prevalent in the top founders. And also the ones that really make it the distance, if you think about Mark Zuckerberg saying no to a billion dollars, Evan Spiegel saying no to three billion, they tend to be able to transfer their drive from feeling a lack of to a grand vision. So they are able to take out that fuel and put in rocket fuel, the extreme kind of fuel and extreme ambition,

• 1:02:16David Weisburd?

  and also desire to truly change and carve their own kind of their own vision into society. So I do find that the ones that are purely driven by that lack of do tend to sell early and maybe not lead to the type of power laws that venture capitalists are looking for. The ones that truly change the world, but that Zuckerberg, Evan Spiegel, I would put Elon. A lot of these people are mostly driven by positive views of the future and how they can make a positive impact, even if, even if 100% of their motivation early on was due to this lack, still they're able to transition from this driven from lack to driven to, to a vision.

• 1:02:59Speaker 00

  I had this great conversation earlier today with the CEO, with Amr, the CEO of EnSave. And he was so excited about a framework they're going to use internally. And he said, I didn't get it from anywhere else. I'm not picking it up because I read an article. He literally said this, he goes, it's right for my company. It's right for EnSave. And I know it's right for how we're going to run our company. And I was like, that's what I want to see. It's, it was like that first principle thinking. It's the same thing I hear all the time from people who say, CEOs, oh, you know what Jensen's doing? You know, did you read that article? It's, he does one on 60, right? It's him and his 60 reports.

• 1:03:41Speaker 00

  I'm gonna do that too. I'm like, you only have twenty five people in your company. But then we go through it and I'm like, why do you want to do it? Jensen does it. So why? And I don't want to do one on ones anymore. And I said, I understand, but what does your company need? But also remember Jensen's been doing this at Nvidia for thirty years. And this is what works for them now. And so when Amr from NSafe said that, I was like, oh, this is beautiful. This is beautiful. You're looking at what you where your company is right now. They raised eighteen million from Sequoia. They're a series A company with twenty five employees. They are on a rocket ship. But what do they need right now? And I love that thinking.

• 1:04:22David Weisburd?

  It's this capital P first principles. My first principles are Jensen Wang is doing it, which of course is the second principles, if anything. And there's the lowercase first principles, which is no one else is doing it, but using first principles thinking. I'm I've deducted this framework that works for me. That is truly first principles thinking.

• 1:04:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the first principle thinking I love about what Amr's doing is like, we're gonna do a two week experiment. And then we're gonna come back and see how it works.

• 1:04:50David Weisburd?

  Let's assume that a CEO can't afford an Alexis or a motoring method and wants to implement one step today to be better. What is one step that they could take today to become a better CEO?

• 1:05:02Speaker 00

  Here's three things. One is making people feel heard. That's so important. It's because it just slows you down as a CEO, a manager. And it helps you connect with the person across from you. Because you're again, you're not judging the person. You're not focusing on judging, defending or excusing yourself. You're literally taking an active listening role and you're repeating it back. And so often, when you repeat it back to somebody and they feel like you've heard them, that's eighty percent of the way there. Great. That's one. Two, learn how to ask and receive feedback.

• 1:05:45Speaker 00

  And when I say feedback, I don't mean just that someone is giving you feedback. But have the integrity to say if you accept it or not.

• 1:05:57Speaker 00

  Find CEOs really have a hard time having difficult conversations with people. They avoid it and things fester. So have that conversation. People want honesty and they will always respect it if you're being authentic. So when you're giving feedback or you're receiving feedback, tell them if you accept it or not. And then put that feedback into actions if you've accepted it and make it visible to people. Like if they've asked you to do something and you accept it, follow up with them. Let them know, hey, in our next one-on-one or an all-hands meeting. You guys have said that I wasn't doing a job of doing of doing active listening. I've really worked on that. I hope you've seen that. If you haven't seen it, please point it out to me.

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  That's great. That's good feedback. And then it's this concept of anger and fear. How do you get out of anger and fear as a CEO? Anger makes you do something you later regret and you have to go back and change it or apologize. Right? It's okay to have that emotion of anger because I think it helps you. It's telling you something. But take a moment to realize what it's saying to you because it's about you, not the person across from you. And then two, fear is so limiting. I'm not saying the fear that says I can walk into a busy intersection and that truck will not hit me. I have no fear. Now that's stupidity, right?

• 1:07:26Speaker 00

  You know what's gonna happen, but there are other fears that are limiting. Like I can't go have this conversation, this tough conversation because my CTO will quit.

• 1:07:37Speaker 00

  Here's the fear. I'm telling you, it'll be the 180 degree difference is one is having that difficult conversation with your CTO is actually going to be liberating for you. Now, if your CEO, CTO leaves or not, you're gonna be okay. But the story you're telling yourself around that is limiting. So in conclusion, it's make people feel heard, learn how to ask and accept or not accept the feedback and put actions to it. And then three, understand the power that anger or fear has over you as a CEO.

• 1:08:18David Weisburd?

  In terms of your clients, do you work with just CEOs? Do you work with fund managers, VCs?

• 1:08:24Speaker 00

  I work with primarily founders.

• 1:08:29Speaker 00

  I work with a couple of VCs and a couple of PE firms as well. And I find same issues across the board.

• 1:08:41David Weisburd?

  And what would be the best way for people to get in contact with you if they're interested in potentially being coached?

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  You can go to musharimethod.com, our website. And we have a big click here if you want to, if you want to work with us. You can also reach out to me on LinkedIn and email me or my colleagues. And you'll find that on our website.

• 1:09:07David Weisburd?

  Alexis, I want to really thank you for taking the time to delving deep and even helping me, even delving deep into my relationship drama and my, my conversations as well.

• 1:09:19Speaker 00

  Thank you, David. Really appreciate being on here and sharing everything and hearing what's going on in your life as well.

• 1:09:25David Weisburd?

  Thank you, Alexis. Thanks for listening to my conversation. If you enjoyed this episode, please share with a friend. This helps us grow, also provides the very best feedback when we review the episode's analytics. Thank you for your support.