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To combat the natural tendency for decisions to flow up in a founder-led company, the CEO and COO must explicitly document which high-stakes decisions they alone will make (e.g., major brand campaigns, M&A). This clarifies what can and should be pushed down to the rest of the organization.
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A CEO wears many hats—scientist, investor, operator—but their primary, non-delegable function is decision-making. This role requires integrating input from a leadership team that thinks at an enterprise level, enabling the CEO to make the final call on capital, strategy, and people.
The CEO of Siemens advocates for decisions to be made at the lowest possible level. However, he stresses this empowerment is a two-way street that must operate within clear strategic boundaries and come with direct accountability for the outcomes, preventing chaos.
As companies grow, decision-making can slow down due to ambiguity. Plaid combats this by explicitly naming one person as the on-point decision-maker for every task at the conclusion of meetings. This clarifies accountability and accelerates execution.
CEO Oliver Karaz defines his role by three decision types: 1) hiring senior leaders he can trust to run their domains, 2) absorbing blame for calculated risks to encourage team innovation, and 3) integrating diverse inputs to set the company’s long-term 'where the puck is going' strategy.
A CEO's main function isn't constant ideation but relentless information consumption to build deep context and intuition. This groundwork enables them to make the one to three truly pivotal decisions each year that shape the company's future, while also creating an environment where the team's best ideas can emerge.
Contrary to the popular advice to 'hire great people and get out of their way,' a CEO's job is to identify the three most critical company initiatives. They must then dive deep into the weeds to guarantee their success, as only the CEO has the unique context and authority to unblock them.
Not all decisions are equal, and treating them the same causes micromanagement. Frame decisions at three levels: Level 1 for strategic bets (owned by the CEO), Level 2 for product bets (owned by product leaders), and Level 3 for daily execution (owned by teams).
To avoid becoming a bottleneck, create a decision framework with tiered spending authority (e.g., $50 for any employee, $500 for managers). This pushes problem-solving down to the people with the most context, freeing up the CEO and speeding up operations.
Founders who constantly solve their team's problems create a bottleneck and train employees to bring problems, not solutions. The '10-80-10 Rule' provides a framework for effective delegation: engage in the first 10% (scoping), let the team own the middle 80% (execution), and re-engage for the last 10% (review).
Paul Graham's "founder mode" (direct control) becomes impractical at scale. However, founders must recognize moments—like major pivots or acquisitions—where their unique combination of motivation, decision power, and market intuition is required to take actions that a delegated leader is not empowered to do.
