The secret to Citrix's success

This is a blog that I'm going to splash out there, and then work on over time.  I love Citrix and want to talk about them as a model for some of our other clients.  And I think I've figured out why they're so successful.

Citrix is run by an entrepreneur, vs a corporate animal.  Mark Templeton is disdainful of the big company corporate culture, way of life, entitlement, ego's, etc.  And this is why he cannot be caught.  They just move faster than the herd because it's in their DNA to concentrate on speed of movement vs sheer size, and they certainly don't waste any time talking about how great they are.  How big a weapon is humility?

Look at the organization and the bio's of the key players.  Do you see a big company in their backgrounds?  Not many, and anyone who does, had it some time ago, vs recently.  Most are people who came from startups, or were home grown.  Mark has an uncanny eye for talent, and he's collected an interesting cast of characters around him, including some "nobodies" who came in through acquisition and are now industry stars, like Mr. Payne.  These people were not usual suspects, not "obvious" choices.  These people, over the last 5 years, were hungrier than the guys at VMWare and the billions of other players like Cisco with whom they compete.  This team just outruns people who are busy pointing to the size of their "P&L" (it's the kiss of death when people start to point to size as a measure of success or relevance).  I talk to guys all the time who are more proud of this stupid, irrelevant subject and the Citrix guys would never think like that.  Their driving thought?  Their standard?  Their goal?

WINNING. LEADING.  PIPELINE.  OF PRODUCTS. AND TALENT.

These guys are tireless, they're hungry.  You can see the fire in their eyes.  But they're level headed and thoughtful at the same time.  And Mark is a horse.  The guy operates with the energy of a 20 year old but the wisdom of statesman.  He is the most underrated CEO I've heard of in years, probably because he operates out of Florida.

More later.  This company continues to amaze me.

How to pick a search consultant

I continue to get several calls a day from clients (entrepreneurs, VC's, late stage privates and public companies) saying "I need a VP of this or a VP of that and tell me if you'd take it on."  Some situations are pretty early stage, and as cool as early stage companies are, the earlier you are, the harder it is to attract talent.  People want low risk, high reward right now, so to get people who are good, who are willing to take the risk of earlier stage companies, you have to be prepared to dig really deep, hunt very widely, and beg, borrow and steal to get peoples' attention.  And the junior VP in a larger company is just as hard.  Hard is good and we all like a challenge, but the key for clients: match the role with the search person.

My advice is to really step back and think: "this is going to be a grind and a dogfight, so whom should I use to get this done?"  The usual suspects aren't always the right answer in picking a search person, though as a "usual suspect myself," I would hate for clients to stop thinking about me!

Here is how to think about hiring that killer up and comer VP for either a small startup or a public company looking for people several layers below the CEO:

• Use younger, hungrier search people for these projects.  They're about DIGGING and CARPET BOMBING, and begging people to talk to you, not taking no for an answer, and being clever about getting in front of people.  Higher level projects are much more strategic and require, typically, a senior search person to navigate Board dynamics, convince successful CEOs, or CFOs, or what have you, to talk to your client and ultimately accept your offer because, in part, they trust the judgment of the search person as much as their own judgment.  I'd like to believe that my partners and I possess this unique ability and credibility to impact senior people.  But the junior VP project is a different animal altogether...When in Rome...
• Senior search people who would take on a junior VP project are not likely good, because they're not highly sought after for higher visibility projects.  If they were highly sought after, with great respect for the junior VP stuff, they'd be doing more senior work. It's that simple and basic.  Like any profession, the search profession is full of people who are ambitious to climb higher, vs stall out.  You work your way UP, not down.  Having said that, it is always fun to do the occasional "crazy" project and we all love to mix it up a bit.  Sometimes you find an entrepreneur, or they find you, to whom you just can't say no for anything.  I'd do a janitor search for Jyoti Bansal, for example.
• The talent at the VP level are typically now a next gen, Millenial or Gen X crowd.  Match the candidate population with your recruiter, and you'll find they'll get great results.  Again, want to be a Roman (young, well trained commando)?  Your search consultant should be able to look/act like one.
• The next generation talent will work 80 hours a week to prove themselves.  My partner, Lee Schweichler, still works harder than many 25 year olds I know, and none of my partners play any serious golf.  I don't even have a handicap.  But we are the exception.  None of us were hugged enough as kids, or maybe we're just adrenaline junkies who are paranoid of failure and love a challenge.  Most of our peers are playing more golf than working, spend more time selling vs doing projects, etc.  If I were choosing a search consultant for an up and comer VP, I wouldn't select myself.  I'd select Eamonn Tucker, Mike Doonan, Sean Lucq, Nicole Freitas, Mike Dempsey, Jeremy Levin, Melissa Taunton, etc.  It's a dog fight out there.  Hire the rabid, hungry dog to win a dog fight.

Good luck.  It's a brave, tough, hard world right now in this chaotic realm of technology, Bay Area, recruiting, too much money sloshing around, etc.  Things are tense, things are sketchy, things are moving at warp speed.  Don't look at your recruiter's resume, look at the fire in their eyes and the clock speed in their brains, because otherwise you're in for a long, difficult search with someone who won't work as hard for your tricky search, and won't crawl through fire to pull it off.

It's an age-old, universal truth that if you give someone who is well trained, hungry and smart a shot, most often it pays off significantly.  This applies to just about anything, from football to business.  In other words, give our up and comers a shot...I have 1000% faith in every one of them, and the youngest one, with a head injury, would outperform any "veteran" I know.

Internet radio: a conundrum

I love music, am in a garage band, and am finding myself conflicted about the state of this lovely form of art, so I'd like to post a way off topic blog here for anyone who may be unfortunate enough to land on my blog page. Welcome.

I was an early Pandora enthusiast, and then became a big Spotify evangelist and early user. I've got subscriptions to both, because the thought of my music being interrupted or unavailable at any time is appalling to me. I've got sound cloud, sonos, all kinds of stuff. I'm "that guy." And proud of it.

Long ago, I decided not to steal music and not because Jobs told me not to. It just didn't feel good to rip off music and then try to enjoy it. It's just not cool.

So I love these services and feel immensely indebted to those who create the music I enjoy. But I'm beginning to wonder whether these services help or hurt musicians. I can't get this topic out of my mind, so I thought I'd jot down a few pro's and con's to get this thought out of my mind and into the world, in the hope that someone will step in to help sort this out.

Why these services help:

1) exposure of course. Mass distribution at low cost. Easy.
2) you don't sell your soul to a label. The indie movement lives. No cheeseball LA bonehead music executive determines whether you're relevant to the world. Yes, I saw Rock of Ages. Hated that bald guy....
3) a lot of bands who would have spent their lives in obscurity now have a shot at stardom. What's not to like about that?
4) you feel as though you're discovering people all the time. That's gratifying. And then you share your discoveries. Feels great to share good art.

Users, of course, music fans, etc. all benefit immensely. This explosion of music: what does it mean? Were there always this many bands around to delight us? Did digital music services and Internet radio give rise to massive numbers of new musicians, or just amplify their presence? Hmm....

Why the services hurt musicians:

1) musicians make no money now. The only way for musicians to make money is to tour and sell merchandise.
2) we're swimming in music now. Is the super band a thing of the past? You can love a few bands, but when was the last time you felt like part of a cult? Was Cold Play the last mega smash hit multi platinum band? Where is the next U2? the next Zeppelin?

Do we have too much choice? Is dilution a threat to quality? Are we drowning in this delightful and vast realm of sound, that is suddenly such a big part of or lives?

Ultimately I'm happy for all of this but have to admit to a little guilt over the plight of the modern musician. Life on the road can be rough. I hope it's worth it and that the art lives on. But you wonder: like everything, is too much of a good thing actually a bad thing?