CEO Joys And Sorrows

How interesting and strange it is to be a CEO. First of all, I'm so thankful to Jim Moore and John Palfrey for giving me the opportunity to be CEO of Top Ten Sources. Secondly, I'm so thrilled to work with these talented folks, especially Wendy Koslow and Indigo Tabor. They come up with such great ideas every single day -- how do they do it?!? Often as not, they say the most brilliant out-of-the-blue, but then, totally simple and obvious things and I just want to whack my forehead in a "why didn't I think of that" mode.

There's the joy of it -- I don't have to think up all the good stuff. Like a parent, I can be thrilled to enjoy other people being brilliant and growing into their new roles. It's terrific. I've always been a sucker for seeing the best in people and now this is just the right time and place to have that ability. And there's so much good to see. We have a great staff of very talented editors and equally cool techy folks at TTS and it's been great to get to know them.

Notice there are a lot of women working here in top slots at Top Ten Sources? You might think that was MY PREJUDICE, and hiring preference, but ironically, this came from above me, from two guys. Yes, blame it on John and Jim. They have assembled a great all-girl top team here.

Sorrows of CEO's fall on deaf ears these days. No, unlike Enron folks, I'm not here to complain about only earning $43 million last year or something scandalous like that. (This is a start-up and we're running it on that proverbial shoestring.) My only true sorrow of late has been catching a cold that stopped me in my tracks. I can't stand being under the weather with so much to do.

Can I keep blogging the way I always have here at Halley's Comment? I'm gonna try, but we're also building a blog out at Top Ten Sources which should be fun. Wish it were up already, but it will be soon.

If it were, I could tell about exciting stuff like tonight, getting a draft list of favorite feeds from Werner Vogels, the CTO of Amazon. He's written a great intro about how he picked them and we're just about to publish it.

And next week we've got not just one Scoble, but TWO! Mr. and Mrs. Scoble will be sharing their top ten (that makes twenty) favorites. They kind of remind me of Mr. and Mr. and Mrs. Smith but luckily, I don't think Robert and Maryam have any guns. At least I hope not ...

And if you think putting together a list of only ten favorite RSS feeds is a piece of cake ... it isn't, believe me. It's like planning a wedding ... speaking of cake ... with only ten guests! And speaking of weddings ... hey, check it out.