Some time in my first year at LinkedIn something happened behind 2029 on the old Stierlin Court campus. I was behind the building and J-Dubs was walking in. He saw a piece of trash on the ground - a plastic cup or a crumpled fast food bag or whatever it was. He bent down, picked it up, and carried it to the trash can on his way to the door.
At the time I’d probably already heard “Act Like An Owner” (among other things) a million times, but I was still trying to figure out where the bathrooms were and I didn’t really know what it meant …and this little vignette drove it home. It was just a small thing, but here was El Jefe - the CEO himself - . picking up a bit of trash, unintentionally showing me directly what it means to act like an owner.
I still think about that sometimes (obviously) - alongside a whole bunch of more material actions over the years - and it’s helped me to form an opinion about what an Executive is actually for If you’re interested I think . this little write-up might express it better than I ever could, but the tl;dr is that an Executive’s purpose is to enforce the values that the company needs in order to succeed; in short, to walk the walk.
At any rate, Roslanskinator: I’ve got full confidence but you’ve got some big shoes to fill in this regard.
…and Dubs: you’ll be missed.