When founders come in to pitch our firm — one as the CEO and the other as president — the conversation often goes like this: “Who is running the comp… - Ben Horowitz

Recently, a large company offered to buy one of our portfolio companies. The deal was lucrative and compelling given the portfolio company’s progress to date and revenue level. The founder/CEO (I’ll call him Hamlet — not his real name) thought that selling did not make sense due to the giant market opportunity that he was pursuing, but he still wanted to make sure that he made the best possible choice for investors and employees. Hamlet wanted to reject the offer, but only marginally. To complicate matters, most of the management team and the board thought the opposite. It did not help that the board and the management team were far more experienced than Hamlet. As a result, Hamlet spent many sleepless nights worrying about whether he was right. He realized that it was impossible to know. This did not help him sleep. In the end, Hamlet made the best and most courageous decision he could and did not sell the company. I believe that will prove to be the defining moment of his career.

Enforce management training by teaching it yourself. Managing the company is the CEO’s job. While you won’t have time to teach all of the management courses yourself, you should teach the course on management expectations, because they are, after all, your expectations. Make it an honor to participate in these sessions by selecting the best managers on your team to teach the other courses. And make that mandatory, too.

When interviewing candidates, it’s helpful to watch for small distinctions that indicate whether they view the world through the “me” prism or the “team” prism.