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In the Shadow of a CEO
Is mentorship overrated?
Years ago, I was assigned to a CEO’s pet project — one doomed to fail. But while the project struggled, the real value came from simply being in the room.
While the project itself was doomed to failure, what I got out of it was invaluable.
For months, I worked in a university teacher’s office, stationed at a small desk behind my boss — the co-founder of an up-and-coming startup. I could see their screen from my desk and was encouraged to listen in on their meetings — while pretending not to — as I multitasked on my real work. I was learning the business slowly by osmosis. Like I mentioned, the project I was assigned to was a dead-end pet project from the CEO, meant to optimize one aspect of their workflow. It was time-consuming and lacked direction. Being new to the job and the industry — straight out of university — I did what I was told.
Listen and Learn
The key point is I took the opportunity, listened and learned. After some meetings, when there wasn’t a fire to extinguish on our multiple projects, we would debrief together:
