"Fire quickly but with grace -- most leaders wait far too long"
Evidence from the Archive
Mochary Method
Wei Deng of Clipboard Health uses stakeholder-first decision-making: identify what the customer wants, then address...
Wei Deng of Clipboard Health uses stakeholder-first decision-making: identify what the customer wants, then address each person who gets hurt in the implementation
Mochary coaches CEOs at companies including Coinbase, Notion, Brex, and Clipboard Health. His book 'The Great CEO Within' is widely referenced in Silicon Valley. Their core argument: Fire quickly but with grace -- become the person's agent and help them land somewhere better.
The evidence is specific: Wei Deng of Clipboard Health uses stakeholder-first decision-making: identify what the customer wants, then address each person who gets hurt in the implementation. Furthermore, during layoffs, each manager can be the 'agent' for their direct reports -- even in a large layoff of 50%, that means six people per manager at most.
In Matt Mochary's own words: "The reason people are bad at this is because they think that they're hurting the person who they're letting go. I mean, how many times have I heard from someone, 'Yeah, this person's not performing, but gosh, they really need this job and their mother has cancer.'" (Explaining why leaders delay firing decisions.)
Mochary Method (CEO Coach)
Mochary let go of an outperformer and the organization ran better within 2-3 months
WhatsApp served hundreds of millions of users with ~55 engineers
Matt Mochary is a CEO coach who works with many of Silicon Valley's top founders including at Coinbase, Notion, and others. He is author of The Great CEO Within and runs his own organization where he tests his most radical management ideas before recommending them to clients. Their core argument: With fewer people in the organization, things work better -- this is the big realization most people never discover.
The evidence is specific: Mochary let go of an outperformer and the organization ran better within 2-3 months. Furthermore, whatsApp served hundreds of millions of users with ~55 engineers. Instagram had 13 employees when acquired by Facebook for $1B.
In Matt Mochary's own words: "With fewer people in the organization, things work better. That's the big realization that most people never discover. They hit product market fit, they get tons of money from investors, just hire, hire, hire, but every additional human you have in your organization causes extra overhead and geometrically so." (The counterintuitive lesson from coaching dozens of top CEOs.)