How to Be a Young Boss (Or Work for One)
Note to Self
WNYC Studios
4.7 • 2.7K Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2014
⏱️ 15 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
There are a lot of baby-faced CEOs in the tech sector. But how can someone who's never had a job be a great boss? We bring you three (and a half) personal stories about running companies at extremely young ages, or working for a 24 year-old boss—including the ego wrangling that comes with this flipped age dynamic. There comes a point when CEOs in their 20s have to hire employees in their 30s and 40s or older, especially for C-suite roles (even if the C-suite is starts out as a dumpy conference room).
This week on New Tech City, you'll hear stories of young leaders learning to lead including Brian Wong, the 22-year-old head of Kiip, two founders that are even younger, and Arjun Dev Arora of Retargeter. Plus, what happens when an employee pushing 40 is asked to forgo her own hotel room and share a bed with her 24 year-old boss and coworker to save money.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi it's Manouche and this is New Tech City and before we get started I just want to thank |
| 0:05.3 | you dear listener for making us the number one tech podcast on iTunes this past week. |
| 0:10.8 | You rock! |
| 0:11.8 | If you haven't rated us yet, please take a second, do it, keep us up there. |
| 0:17.4 | And now it's our show about wisdom in the workplace and how being a young boss or working |
| 0:24.6 | for one is like listening to Beyoncé. |
| 0:30.0 | Sitting next to me is New Tech City producer Alex Goldmark and Alex, when you hear those |
| 0:34.0 | trumpets you know exactly what it is, right? |
| 0:36.0 | Yeah, it's that riff from Beyoncé's crazy in love. |
| 0:40.0 | Right, you know the riff, you know the song and you may have even bought her most recent |
| 0:46.3 | album maybe. |
| 0:47.3 | The one that dropped like a secret, no I didn't actually buy that but I was impressed |
| 0:51.5 | by how it sold because Beyoncé is one of the few musicians out there who can still sell |
| 0:56.1 | a full album. |
| 0:57.1 | I mean millions of them, right? |
| 0:58.5 | Right and here comes the analogy. |
| 1:00.0 | I went to see a guy called John Borthwick, he's pretty well known on the New York |
| 1:03.5 | Tech scene as the head of BetaWorks. |
| 1:05.8 | He's also on WNYC's Board of Trustees I should mention and BetaWorks sort of acts as an |
| 1:10.8 | umbrella for a whole bunch of smaller tech companies like Bitly, TweetDeck, anyway John |
| 1:17.1 | likes to use music as an analogy to how technological changes are upending all kinds of businesses. |
| 1:24.4 | If you think in the old days the atomic unit in music was really the album, the singles |
... |
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