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What's the biggest, most common mistake Startup CEOs make managing?


Stashed in: Hiring, @bhorowitz, Management, I've made a huge mistake.

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Ben Horowitz: 

One big mistake that startup CEOs make is assumptions about people from different backgrounds.

If you're an engineer, it's very easy to assume all your employees are like engineers culturally, and that your human resources design will be the same across the company. Sales guys are very different from engineers.

Ken Coleman:

[Sometimes CEO don't understand that] this is a people business. What's important is…getting the people thing right. Hiring the right people. Having an ability to make a change that hurts someone's feelings. 

Horowitz says Coleman was his "boss's boss's boss's boss" at Silicon Graphics.

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