This is the 66th in a series of business tips from industry leaders that Enterprise Times has interviewed. Enterprise Times recently interviewed Sanjiva Weerawarana, Founder, Director and CEO of WSO2, about the company. He spoke about how the company has evolved while still being underpinned by its open-source approach.
As Weerawarana has led the company since it was founded and through several funding rounds, I asked him what the best piece of advice was that he received from an external advisor.
“That goes to before the company was formed in June of 2005. Myself and my co-founders were meeting various people on how to start the company. We were researching.
“We had no idea, and we met Patrick Grady, the CEO of Rearden Commerce. Patrick actually first offered both of us a job saying, forget about that and go build a platform for us. (We said), “No, you need to go to IBM or somebody else to work with to build your platform”.
“His advice was, when you’re a CEO of a company, there are days when your company is more shooting off to the stars. There are days when it’s heading off to the Mariana Trench. Your team can’t handle that. You need to maintain a flatline. That was the best advice. I have told this to many of the leaders in the company because, in a leadership position, you can’t propagate your irrational exuberance or your irrational sadness down.”
https://www.enterprisetimes.co.uk/2023/12/19/do-not-get-focused-on-technology-when-digitally-transforming-your-organisation
