[cannaceo]

As a CEO I speak to other CEOs on a regular basis about what we're seeing. That means I'm clued in to my customers' trends, vendors' trends, and competitors' trends. I see stuff happening in my industry from a more holistic perspective than my employees. I can tell the difference between a revenue decline from a lack of competitiveness versus industry decline. You might not see us working but we talk. A lot.

[henryfjordan]

"The reason CEOs are smarter than everyone else is because they talk to other CEOs".

Seems a bit circular to me.

[cannaceo]

It sounds like you're operating under the assumption that nothing is predictable in the economy and that we're all looking in to a crystal ball. In reality we're looking at our financials and sales trends and then comparing that data up and down the supply chain.

We're not smarter than everyone else. No, we're just more clued in to what's happening with our capital markets, vendors, competitors, and customers.

[thegypsyking]

Hey! I’m currently an ml engineer and my dream is to be ceo of a mid size company one day. Do you have any advice for how I can move into that direction?

[cannaceo]

No advice but I can share my perspectives. I happened to be at the right place at the right time to start a company and be an early player in a new technology that created a multi-billion market that didn't exist before. I happened to have the cross-trained in the right combination of skills and showed up at the right time. Skill alone wouldn't have been enough.

Try to be forward thinking about what trends might be coming. It used to be easier to do this but now everyone hops on trends quickly so it's harder to maintain a head start.

I'm looking at my next venture right now and I'm mostly focused on the overall macro picture surrounding the growth prospects of an industry. Things like population dynamics are playing a bigger part of how I see opportunity. The best CEO won't accomplish much in a dying or flat industry.

Ignore people who say "X is saturated". Everything is saturated. What matters is if the market is going to grow.

Now I'm more focused on wealth deployment and preservation and trying to focus less on building new things. Building is where my passion is but it's high risk and I don't need to be taking risks anymore.

[thegypsyking]

Really appreciate The time you’ve put into this! I have no wealth or anything like that, so the road for me will definitely be to work like a dog for the next 10 years and hope someone wants to pay handsomely for what I build (honestly even being a senior at faang I’ll never escape the middle class paying income tax). Afterwards I’ll move to a lower tax/col country snd live like a king

[dafty4]

So, are you thinking more about laying people off recently? :)

[MisterSandman]

Bull fucking shit. If CEOs can talk their way into predicting the economy, why the fuck are most companies firing large swaths of their workforce? Couldnt predict a tech recession after a global pandemic?

[krageon]

The average CEO can't even figure out why they can't seem to hire new people, but somehow they are very well clued in to market fluctuation? I think it is more reasonable to assume equal competence.