Why is it so important to be a product CEO to scale?

[Reyed Mia (Apprentice, DIU)]

Why is it so important to be a product CEO to scale?

- I was hired to be the CEO in part because I am a product person, and Rita and I both share a very strong conviction that the most valuable companies in Silicon Valley, the most valuable internet companies are led by product people. You could have be a product manager, you could have be an engineer, you could have be anything that would have developed your product sensibility, but at the end of the day, these companies create value through their products. So I don't think it's a big stretch. I think the further removed a CEO or the leader of an organization is from the product itself, is from the core of how value is generated within the company, the more challenging it's going to be for that company to create value sustainably over time.

And sometimes you probably have situations with founders that created that first product, and then unfortunately, there's too many layers that develope between them and the day to day development of that product. And I think the most valuable companies, I mean, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, you know the names. They're all product people. First and foremost, they're about products. In Jeff's case, he's about product and customers, he's about, I mean, that is his product. He said, I just shared this the other day, it was a quote from way back when Amazon was first starting, and he said Amazon wasn't a book store, it's a customer store.

What does it take to scale a multibillion-dollar business and foster a healthy company culture at the same time? Listen in as the CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, shares insights from his experiences. Jeff describes what it was like joining LinkedIn, his initial observations, and how he dedicated his first hundred days to really getting to know the people and the product. He emphasizes the value of listening and how this mindful approach helped him shape and define a vision for the business that embraced the collective personality of the organization and its aspirations. Then, he relates the excitement that was felt company-wide as the vision quickly became more than a dream but part of an operational reality. Thoughts on leadership, coaching, hiring, and retaining top talent are also expressed.

https://www.linkedin.com/learning/jeff-weiner-on-establishing-a-culture-and-a-plan-for-scaling/why-is-it-so-important-to-be-a-product-ceo-to-scale