🔥 💣 I’ve decided to “fire” myself after 14 years as CEO of CB Insights.

[More here on my ‘fire yourself framework‘]

Starting tomorrow, I’ll still be working 180% at CBI but in the role of Founder & Executive Chairman

In this role, my focus shifts to customer conversations, product, content & partnerships.

One area I’ll also be spending a isht ton of time on is generative AI.

The video below highlights the AI-driven research analyst we’ve been working on

And this is just the start

For those interested in “the why” behind this move, below are my comments to our team from our All Hands last week.

-ALL HANDS-

Earlier this morning, I sent an email about my vision for the product from 2017. It relates to the news that I will share with you this AM

And that is that I have decided to “fire” myself as CEO and will be transitioning to the role of founder & exec chairman

Why?

For 2 reasons:

1. Zone of genius
2. Delivering on the 2017 sci-fi vision

1st – zone of genius

Talking to customers, hearing about their challenges and translating that to what we can build to make them supernatural is what I love.

It’s where my “zone of genius” is

As we’ve grown, however, I’m spending more time outside this zone

If CBI is an organism, the early days required spending all my time outside the organism talking to customers, building dope isht for them, getting more customers & then building more dope isht

Rinse & repeat

It was ‘simple’.

As the organism has grown, I’ve had to live “inside the organism” more focused on operations & management – 1:1s, annual planning, process mgmt, etc

These are incredibly important to scale a company

They are, however, not where my strengths and interests lie.

I like the unknowns & novelty of what living outside the organism brings

And so I wanted to find a way to get back to those things

That’s the zone-of-genius bit

Now let’s turn to the sci-fi vision

That vision really wasn’t possible.

Until now.

In Nov ‘22, chatGPT was an ‘oh isht’ moment.

Since then, I’ve been fully red-pilled on GAI.

With it, we can now actually deliver on that 2017 vision

And so it’s go-time!

I’m incredibly excited about what this will mean for our customers, the company and our team as it will enable us to:

• Invest dramatically in product innovation
• Open up new career opportunities & pathways for you all
• Bring people together in person more often

Where will I be focused?

My job in the near term is to help onboard and integrate the new CEO.

The areas you’ll still me involved in are:

• Customer conversations — #1 thing.
• Research & content — Writing the newsletter & other content w/ the team
• Product — Pushing our GAI agenda.
• Partnerships

I am not stepping off the field onto the sidelines

I am merely taking another position which is better for our customers and CBI

Let me close by saying thanks to you all for your continued hard work and dedication.

Now, LFG!