May 26, 2025
Star hires won’t save a shallow sales org. Here’s why your startup’s bench strength matters more than your CRO’s resume.
June 23, 2025
Family-owned companies in Mexico are at a crossroads. This guide breaks down how to evolve from legacy leadership to institutional strength—starting at the C-suite.
July 15, 2025
Red Bull Racing doesn't let pit crew mechanics decide which drivers to sign. Mercedes doesn't let the catering team screen candidates for Lewis Hamilton's replacement. Yet most CEOs let HR departments—people who've never run a P&L, managed a board, or navigated a company through crisis—eliminate candidates for their next CFO, COO, or VP of Operations before the CEO ever meets them.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: By the time you meet executive candidates, the best ones are already gone. Not because they weren't qualified. Not because they weren't interested. But because someone three levels below you—using a resume screening checklist built for hiring customer service reps—decided they "weren't a fit."
August 22, 2025
Paul Graham's "Founder Mode" essay went viral, but it frames the wrong question. The choice isn't founder mode versus operator mode. It's knowing when to shift between them. For most startups, that shift happens at Series B, where 35% of companies fail. Drawing lessons from Mercedes F1's 2022 transformation and McLaren's decade-long turnaround under Zak Brown, this article explores why Series B is the breaking point and how founders can build leadership teams that scale without losing their vision.
October 5, 2025
Sergio Pérez won five races for Red Bull but was still let go. His replacement lasted two races. The problem wasn't the drivers—it was the impossibility of being Number Two to Max Verstappen. Every CEO faces this same challenge with COOs and Presidents. Here's how to structure second-in-command roles that actually work.
October 31, 2025
COO searches fail more than any other C-suite hire, not because of the candidates, but because they expose founder phase issues that nobody diagnosed before the search began. When founders struggle to hire a COO, the search itself becomes a diagnostic tool, revealing ambivalence about delegation, unclear role definitions, and organizational conditions that would cause any hire to fail. Before evaluating candidates, evaluate the conditions. Every COO search is actually a founder diagnosis.
November 4, 2025
VCs chase the 'rockstar' executive. But the best portfolio companies are built by high on-base percentage leaders—consistent execution, low ego, operational discipline. Here's how to identify them.
December 1, 2025
In Formula 1, rain separates the champions from the field. The same holds true in business—when volatility strikes, rain master executives pull away from the competition. Learn how to identify and recruit leaders who thrive in uncertainty, drawing lessons from Senna, Hamilton, and the greatest wet-weather drivers. A guide to VUCA leadership and executive search.
December 5, 2025
Before the green flag drops in Formula 1, drivers complete a formation lap that's anything but ceremonial. They're warming tires, testing grip, assessing conditions, and gathering intelligence that will determine race strategy. Your new executive's first 90 days serve the same purpose—yet most companies treat onboarding like a parade lap rather than a strategic preparation phase. Here's how to fix that.
December 12, 2025
Founders often miss the optimal 'pit window' for C-suite hires, hiring either too early (the premature undercut) or too late (the catastrophic overcut). Learn to read your company's track conditions using F1 strategy to determine exactly when to bring in your first CFO, CMO, or COO based on revenue milestones, not emergencies.
December 13, 2025
Here's the pattern I see with technical founders: they built the product, they own the vision, they make every major product decision. Then one day, they're managing three product lines, two customer segments, and five product managers—and they've become the bottleneck.
In Formula 1, there are two championships running simultaneously. The Drivers' Championship crowns individual brilliance. The Constructors' Championship crowns the team that built the best system. Early-stage startups are driver championships—founder vision wins. But at scale, you need constructor championship thinking. The product system wins, not just the founder's instinct.
Most founders miss this transition. They keep driving when they should be building the constructor. The signal isn't headcount or funding round—it's strategic timespan. When your product decisions shift from 3-month feedback loops to 3-year bets, you've crossed the threshold. That's when you need a Chief Product Officer.
December 24, 2025
Three COOs in four years. Each one talented. Each one failed. The pattern wasn't in the candidates—it was in a founder who genuinely meant it when he said he was ready to step back, but couldn't yet do what he meant. This article reveals the five behavioral signals that distinguish founders who are actually ready to delegate from those who just think they are. Learn why intention without evidence guarantees failure, what questions to ask before any senior search, and how to diagnose founder phase before another executive's career becomes a casualty of unexamined conditions.