September 5, 2023
Like an F1 car throttling on a track, PE-backed CTOs and CPOs require precision, agility, and foresight. Discover the key traits driving success in Private Equity through the lens of F1 strategy.
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.
September 10, 2025
Most founders build a comfortable "book club" board—an echo chamber that harms the company. The real goal isn't comfort; it's "Strategic Friction." This playbook outlines how to architect a board with the right archetypes—The Operator, The Market Oracle, and The Governance Guru—to forge a true competitive advantage and accelerate growth.
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.
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 26, 2025
The management team looked strong on paper. Eighteen months post-close, the value-creation plan stalled. The deal team had assessed the talent—nobody had diagnosed the conditions. This playbook applies the Race Conditions Model to private equity: five organizational conditions that predict whether leadership will succeed or fail under PE ownership. For deal teams during diligence and operating partners post-close, condition diagnosis transforms management assessment from credential review to structural reality. The talent is rarely the problem. The conditions usually are.
December 29, 2025
The pattern repeats: founder wants scrappy, board wants pedigree, everyone compromises on someone in the middle. Eighteen months later, the hire is gone and everyone blames everyone else. Red Bull and Mercedes F1 just demonstrated what happens when ownership and operations pull in different directions. The fix isn't winning more arguments with your board. It's having better arguments earlier. Align on what you're solving for before the search begins. Define success concretely. Then find the person who fits that definition, regardless of whose preference they validate.
January 16, 2026
The resume looked perfect. VP of Product at a company everyone recognizes. Eight years building teams at scale. Six months later, she's paralyzed. Decisions that should take hours take weeks. The scrappy team that moved fast before she arrived now waits for processes that don't exist. She wasn't the wrong hire—she was the wrong calibration for the conditions. Executives from large tech companies operate inside invisible infrastructure: dedicated recruiters, established processes, automated systems. When they join startups where that infrastructure doesn't exist, their instincts pull them toward rebuilding what they had rather than adapting to what the startup needs. Stop hiring for pedigree. Start diagnosing for conditions. The question isn't whether they're talented—it's whether their talent is tuned for the track you actually have.
January 18, 2026
The moment of truth for executives isn't when everything is clear and the organization is aligned. It's when the support structures go quiet, the information is incomplete, and the leader has to choose anyway. Drawing from Ayrton Senna's legendary 1991 Brazilian Grand Prix—where he finished with only sixth gear working and was lifted bodily from his car—this article explores why standard interview processes fail to assess the capability that matters most: decision-making when the pit wall goes silent. Most organizations hire executives who excel at executing consensus decisions, then watch them freeze when the consensus doesn't exist. Here's how to identify leaders calibrated for the moments when talent alone isn't enough.