In the early days of a startup, everyone does everything.
They have to. @ReedHastings and I were doing customer service in the morning, arguing about the website in the afternoon, and stuffing DVDs into envelopes at night.
We knew just enough about everything to be dangerous — which is exactly what you need when you’re scrambling to keep the lights on.
But survive that stage and something changes. Fast.
The business gets complicated. And complicated businesses need people who know exponentially more than you do about their corner of it.
A lot of founders get stuck right there.
They’ve made every important decision since day one. The company is them and they are the company.
Bringing in someone who actually knows more? Someone who might push back? That feels threatening.
What Reed understood at Netflix— and what I didn’t yet — was that one of your most important jobs as a founder is to work yourself out of every job in the company.
One by one.