Adrenaline junkies vs. Risk takers
The NY Times has a thought-provoking article this morning observing that CEOs do not blog. They mention Jonathon Schwartz, the new CEO of Sun, who is apparently the only Fortune 500 CEO who does.
Having been a CEO, albeit a much smaller company than Sun, I can understand and explain by way of my observation, based on many years of experience serving at several levels of executive management: Good CEOs are not risk-takers, they are adrenaline-junkies, and those are not the same things. Bloggers are risk takers.
Risk takers rate every decision on a penalty/reward continuum and go through life calculating the odds of everyday things like a Vegas bookie. They tend to be fearless in the face of adversity and are often accepting of the consequences of unlucky outcomes. Startup jockeys are risk-takers as are many good CTOs. Risk takers like the intellectual rush that comes from in-depth analysis.
Adrenaline junkies like the emotional thrill of gambling. They often show the same propensities for stress in their personal as they do their business life. They drive fast cars, downhill ski on double-diamond slopes that they're not qualified to be on and are often found on weekends bungie-jumping or taking flying lessons or something equally hormonally stimulating. They don't care about the reward and they take risks for the rush, not for the challenge.
Good bloggers speak from the heart and they see the risk/reward tradeoff as being acceptable. They can explain themselves to others and often learn about themselves by writing down their thoughts. There's no adrenaline boosting going on here to interest the CEO.
Posted on August 01, 2006
