Top 5 GenX-ish CEOs: Tom Brady, Suzy Batiz, Tony Hsieh, Sara Blakely and the OATLY guy
If this is the first Op-Ed of mine you have read, please don’t. Pick something that lets you in on the journey that led me to embracing and executing my current gig as CEO of SindyXR. It is an eXtended Reality Service Platform with VR, AR, 360 mobile apps with a delivery service built in for your global FR needs (obv we misspell fhysical to distinguish the reality we are in when we are device-less and because PR was taken mid 20th c. by ad men).
Please read on with the context that I am building a company where that kind of a sentence makes perfect sense to everyone on the call.
If you know me or have read anything I posted before or watched anything I recorded, then you have an inkling that I operate in a delutional, optimistic reality and I embrace that perspective in myself and those around me. I love myself as often as I can and I hope you love yourself too.
This evening I was getting my pick in with my fraternity brother text string just to put a line in the concrete of my saber-metrics of the Super Bowl: Youth would win, but I am rooting for Brady because I want to hear the history revising stories that the Sportswriters of America have to write about Bill Belichick. If Brady wins one +40 and without the Hoodie Monster, then life will be more interesting.
I was attacked by my New England-bred friend and in defending myself I realized, much to my dismay, that Tom Brady was one of my favorite CEOs. He was forcibly retired in January 2020, knew that he was a fantastic mentor and on field executor and he predicted that COVID-19 would put the NFL in a condition that favored the veteran players. And that, of course, leads chronologically to this OATLY awesomeness in one of the SB commercials; and now I’ve stopped watching the game and am going to try and connect the dots in my head between Tom and Toni.
Since I am bred a Cowboys fan and I DVR everything, my biggest attraction to tonight’s game was listing to Tony Romo tell us what was going to happen next based almost entirely on the Math! But the connection between Tom Brady the GOAT of Quarterbacking and the Top 5 CEOs I would like to have dinner with was not clear to me, yet.
“SUM = (game clock time + # of men on the field) * (play clock + # of times JPP swatted down Tony’s passes (career)) = YEILD over/under Omaha Omaha Hut Hut.”
So back to the argument with Dave, my podcast co-host as well as frat bro, I crafted my argument quickly while he spoke about blah, blah and blablablah (he is a Mass-hole Lifetime Patriots fan so what he said certainly meant a lot to his people but not to me) and I visualized the 3 spheres of efficient and effective business:
1) Money, because no one outside of the capitalist construct uses the CEO acronym unless their main goals are summarized wholistically on the line at the bottom of their P/L statement.
2) Team Building, because by putting the right human in the right job so they succeed and enjoy their job and can contribute to making a better world is an awe inspiring task and combining those humans into grids of 16personalities.com synergy with your project’s Stated Goal is nearly impossible YOY and …
3) Leadership is partly the ability to see ahead far enough so your team can flourish at what they love to do then REV&REP.
These are the 3 qualities I aspire to as a young CEO and what Tom did in the last 6 fiscal quarters is downright, astonishing. Only the GOAT himself could take the Venn overlay of the fiscal year we just completed and win, win, win. Please stop reading if you can imagine a better Top5 dinner party and hit me up on TW to debate. So I am gonna frame this post 24 degree off center…if I could get Tom to tell me how he knew what 2020 would mean to his brands, then who should be there to bear witness.
Zappos Founder Tony Hsieh passed away recently. I only know a little bit about him, I hope to meet him someday in some alt space but I want to have him at the hexagon table in my interactive dining room because he brought sustainability through his business to real space in Reno, if I understand the story and when he was yanked from this earth, he left a machine of shoemaking and money churning into people in his hometown. #zapposforever
And when I was thinking of the 5 other amazing humans who have guided and inspired me since began being a CEO, I usually thought of people older than me with more mature business than any of mine. Boomers or those on the cusp: Carnegie and Hamilton and Jobs obviously, but Dorsey and Butterfield and Frei. And as I sight Twitter, I realize he’s probably younger than I am so, maybe, I mean those with enough life experience to enjoy dinner with Tom and companies founded in our GenX mindset where we own all of the music we love in 4-5 formats and we see the irony that Bezos convinced us that yelling at the speaker in the corner was easier than throwing out our CDs.
Tom has three clear divisions of his brand: TD12, NFL and Gisselle and he was recently forcibly retired from one of them. He bonded with his similarly maligned peers N’Domukan Sou, Jason Pierre Paul, Antonio Brown, Robert Gronkowski and many many more. He aligned himself with a few younger guys such as Leonard Fournette and a few older guys such as Bruce Arians and he knew where he fit in.
GAME BREAK: Tom just threw a second touchdown to Gronk. Do you think that could be because Rob Gronkowski is the perfect man for the job in the back of the end zone against the Honey Badger since their days @AZ and @LSU? Or that Gronk hasn’t had to practice like he was forced to by BB…nah, it’s probably the adrenaline of playing in the big game…or maybe its the cortisone shots.
No! I say, its the GOAT. Tom knew that COVID19 was going to give Rob’s body time to heal and that Travis Kelce was going to be the younger tight end in the game tonight. Back after this commercial.
Sara Blakely is an invite I hope will be accepted based on one story I heard her tell on SharkTank about how she went from one department store to another until they let her sell SPANX from their countertops. I pause often throughout my day and I beat myself up about how hard it is to sell software that is a little before its time (ish) and Sara’s story gives me perspective, thank G_d I don’t have to leave my apartment to sell my products! I get back on the phone to call the next potential client using any resource I can muster. Often Sara is in my mind’s eye. I hope she will come to my virtual CEO dinner…maybe I could get her avatar to come and she could just do the voice over? #spanxmakewomenfeelstrong
I was @COLLISION preCOVID in an auditorium full of 100 other entrepreneurs when Suzy Batiz bound up on the stage a did her off the chart presentation. It told her story, how poo-pouri made her and her employees and shareholders some good money and then she began talking about intuition, or what I later understood to be her gut.
But before I was able to really hear what she was illuminating, first I had to get something off my chest that I was surprised was on my mind this beautiful day in Brooklyn. I ask on the video AMA wall: How does poo-pourri really work?
As a man, who lives with a woman, who purchased the product, and placed it beside our shared toilet, did I really have to spray before I pooped or could it wait? She said that the science says that by spraying before you go, you seal in more of the odors. Then she added that I should should do an A/B test and ask my girlfriend. Now my mind was open to hearing that Suzy feels ideas in her gut and this resonated with me.
My cousin has Synesthesia so I just assumed this was some form of that in the lower intestine. Back @SindyXR we now call this the Resonance : Dissonance Spectrum and would like to invite her to my CEO dinner to celebrate Tom to share how it works during Team MeetUps in XR.
Since there will be so much coverage on Tom, I want this Op Ed to stand out, so I will avoid the obvious, win or lose, why he is a model CEO as well the best QB in this moment in history.
Money: He spent his last 7 years with his previous start up (NE Patriots) working for significantly below market compensation in order to attract talent (Randy Moss, Tedy Bruschi, AB). Obviously there he was a valued long term employee who had moved up thru the ranks to management of the QB room and a brief stint as a C-Suite Exec and when he was laid off, he held a couple Board Seats, but it wasn’t enough.
SIDEBAR: You may be thinking that this move to The Bucs is all explained by his need for absolute power but I strongly suggest you look at what he is doing on the field tonight for one of the worst run businesses in modern history as evidence that he had another clear and present reason to set his significant skills on this strategy.
TEAM Management: He assembled the perfect men currently on the planet over the age of 26 to beat the team that has won a lot in the last 3 year, The Kansas City Chiefs
If you think this is all about agism and jealousy, I will accept that assumption as subconsciously relevant as I send a lot of time speaking with Millennials and GenZers about gamification so I am rooting for the men on the field of a certain age
LEADERSHIP: He is the essence of a player/coach for the Bucs. In the mold of Paul Horning, Tom has inspired each player, coach, fan and Bucs execs to play to win at work, better. In Leonard Fournette’s sophomore year at LSU he ran for a gagillion yards and hasn’t played hard since then. N’domikung Sou has never before been able to play within his anger and JPP has three fingers after discharging his weapon inside his pant leg at a club and was celebrated tonight for swatting down passes! And there are many many human’s Tom cared for and put in a position to succeed.
SIDEBAR: In Tom’s SWOT Analysis Andy Reid is the only THREAT he sees. Only that 7th ring (or Andy’s 5th) will measure the success of Tom’s Q1 2021 KPI.
So here is the secret sauce that Tom sees that I think Suzy, Toni, Sara, and I would all like to hear more about so we can begin the next phase of our companies and find the next thing we will will Found. This is the thing that explains why I am compelled to invite Tom Brady to my CEO Fantasy Dinner: I must know, from the GOAT's mouth, did Tom know what the coronavirus was capable of? Did he see the way it would affect and effect his bottom line? Is he The Magician?
It seems to me that when he and his inner circle bid Mr Kraft adieu, he saw the future emanating out from Woo Huong Province and he felt resonance in his gut, sustainability for his planet, energy to go on another tour around the sun in smelly locker rooms because he saw a market condition, he developed a strategy and executed that strategy to the most profitable extent and then wrapped it up in a bow for the city of Tampa Bay, Florida…?
And this football season WAS a nightmare; deep negligence IMO. People died because Roger Goddell, The Murdoch Family and The Redstone Family are mean people who have no concern for their employees and those human’s families. They dangled so much money in front family men, primarily of color, and made them feel like they HAD to play football this fall (for another voice than mine on this topic, click here now to switch to Bill Rhoden, Steph Curry and LeBron chatting off-record in The Barbershop (viewable exclusively on my Sindy Augmented Reality Glasses)). I jest, sort of...but if the PAC 12 has the wherewithal to play 6 games safely and the perspective in history with humility to shut down Bowl Games entirely then where is the NFL’s leadership in this game, and this earth? Have they no shame?
And assuming Tom did have the experience and data to do this analysis so quickly and deeply, he must know these 35 corporations so well and their 100% wealthy white owners that predicting how this virus was going to benefit the veterans this season was probably not confusing, just lots of puzzle pieces.
Tom knew how this year of staggering uncertainty would be handled by money grabbers and power trippers and trumpites and he somehow implemented the strategy knowing that COVID19 would tip the scales this season to those who don’t need to practice, those who won’t learn a new system and are comfortable with their own old tricks; he knew what talent he needed in every role on the field and on the sideliine and in the luxury suites and so he played one more go around the old gridiron? Is he F_ing Jesus Christ?
GAMEBREAK: Tom just threw a TD to AB at the end of the half. Do you think he gets the ball first in the 3rd quarter? Do you think the coin toss is relevant? Did you bet correctly???
Now the Honey Badger is trying to get his goat? Do you think that Tyrann has seen the predictive analytics? Tom Brady has lost a lot of football games, he was barely even picked in his draft class and I have never seen any tape on him from High School that illuminates his potential.
But that might lead you to think that Tom is like many of us and is motivated to win by this character assassination. But NO! The Honey Badger has seen the data, assessed the predictive analytics and he knows that historically, when Tom gets mad cause he got hit too hard, he often loses. Let's see if they score another 7 before Pat even gets the ball again. The best offense is keeping their best player on the sideline. Have you ever heard of the double dipping?
OK I am going to push play because there are cookie monsters watching the Weekend sing and its more interesting than anything I have seen today.
I can only imagine one CEO who may be able to come up with a scheme to beat Tom and prove his company of lighting quick, video game youngin’s make him a better CEO than Tom .
OK Boomer, let’s see what you got.
Thankfully, I didn’t even have to watch the second half. Dallas sucking eggs thanks to Mike McCarthy inability to learn gave me the spark to go back to work and write this love letter to some of my fav CEOs, some I am proud to think of as my peers now. Open invitation to Suzy, Tom, Sarah, and the OAT Milk guy and RIP Tony, we will miss you at dinner in FR but hear you if we can meetup in a slightly different reality.
Sincerely,
Charles, CEO and Founder of SindyXR, inc.