Behind the Scenes: Running a high-performing company on AOA principles
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Hi Reader, Johannes Landgraf had everything most founders want. His company had just raised $25M, big-name banks were using his product, and over 2 million developers were on his platform. From the outside, it looked like everything was amazing. From the inside, he could see a different reality. The product architecture that got them here couldn’t get them where they needed to go. It created friction for customers and slowed his own team down. Staying the course would keep things looking good for a while… then slowly kill the company. Changing course meant something brutal: They would have to re-architect the product and lay off 30% of the company. When Johannes sat down to write that email, he felt the draw to write what many leaders default to in those moments: Vague, distancing, and “nice” enough that nobody could really blame him. …All the while feeling a deep sense of shame, guilt, and the weight of all those people who had trusted him with their livelihood. The email he actually wrote was different. I encouraged him to write it from the perspective of a fully empowered leader. Not a defensive leader or people-pleasing leader, but one who was willing to tell the truth, feel the impact, and still stand in the decision. He wrote to the team about why the old architecture wouldn’t work. He owned the fear and the mistakes that led them there. He was honest about how painful the layoffs were going to be—and he was clear that this was the right move if they wanted to play to win. A year later, the company has multiplied revenue by 3x, the business is growing rapidly, and his team trusts him more than they ever did before. Open the Drawer + Principles that Make 80% of Decisions AutomaticThat email didn’t just announce a layoff. It became the seed of a new operating principle that now runs through his company: Today I’m excited to share this video I recorded with Johannes, exploring the operating principles that have made his company go from good to great. And, how he built a company from a place of radical transparency, vulnerability, and emotional intelligence. It was an awesome conversation: Big Love, Joe This newsletter is brought to you by The Council. |
Art of Accomplishment
The AOA Leadership Newsletter Hi Reader, There was a CFO I once knew whose finance team never seemed to be able to deliver their quarterly forecasts on time. Every quarter, the same scene played out. The numbers arrived days late. The CFO would walk into the bullpen holding the packet like a piece of evidence, chewing the team out for not delivering when they said they would. The team would scramble, apologize, and walk away feeling smaller and more defensive. They’d hit the next deadline out...
Hi Reader, A few years ago, I worked with a leadership team at a Series C software company. On paper, they were perfectly aligned. Strategic plans were approved unanimously. Everyone nodded in meetings. Decisions passed without friction. And yet nothing moved. Projects stalled, timelines slipped, and initiatives that everyone had "agreed to" kept getting quietly deprioritized. The CEO was baffled. How could a team that agreed on everything execute on nothing? When we dug in, we found the...
Hi Reader, A few years ago, I worked with the CEO of a fast-growing company. He was deeply committed to his people: Generous with equity, flexible on hours, always available. But his company had a problem. They couldn't kill anything. Every initiative seemed to live forever. Their roadmap was cluttered with half-finished projects. Teams were stretched thin, saying yes to everything and finishing nothing. He kept trying to fix it with reorgs, new prioritization frameworks, or hiring new...