August28
I get annoyed reading article after article on how high CEO pay is… all these articles fail to mention they are only looking at the 100, 500, or 5,000 largest companies in the USA. Those businesses are so huge they boggle the mind to think of what those people have to handle, and I have no understanding on that level of management. CEOs of small to medium businesses make no where near this amount in my experience. And, a lot make less than their highest paid employees.
From October 2008 to August 2016 I was the CEO of a company that grew from ~25 people to ~130. For the first 5 years I made no salary, as everything was going back into the business and I was living off savings and living pretty frugally. When I did start taking a salary in 2013 I definitely wasn’t in the top 5 highest paid employees either. From my interactions with other business owners that is pretty common.
There are only 18,5000 businesses in the USA with 500 employees or more employees in the USA. Just keep that in mind next time you read one of these articles. It is only the top 500 CEOs in the country who make an average of 13 million dollars a year running billion dollar businesses :). A debate is probably needed for how compensation is given at these massive firms making hundreds of million dollars. I’d love to see stock given to them, but with a really long lock in period for when they can sell it to ensure they are aligned with what is good for the business long term.
August26
Thursday August 25th was my last day at Site5. Joel and I purchased Site5 in October 2008 (along with one investor), sold it in June 2015, and finished the transition to the new owners as of yesterday.
I spent 7 years building it, and then 14 months making sure it transferred to the new owners in the best possible manner. It was a great ride and I learned more than I ever imagined. The team was magnificent and just an absolute pleasure to work with. The 18 months leading up to the sell in June 2015 were some of the toughest of my life. I only have 90 days of contracting before I am 100% done with everything. It has been an exhausting few years and you would be amazed how much something like this can impact your health.
What’s next?
Along with some of the former Site5 team we are creating a new business called Pressed. Pressed is a white label managed WordPress hosting platform, and the goal is to help web designers and others offer managed WordPress hosting to their clients and build recurring income. It is going well and we are up to 20 team members as of today. I am excited to see it grow and help our partners build some awesome businesses.
August2
I was trying to read this book when I “read” for the first time. I remember this magical moment when the words came alive and I understood them in strings. It is not possible for me to put into words how awesome this was. My one super power in this world is reading and I love books.
PS. As you can probably tell I am moving into our new house, and finding a lot of stuff that has been in boxes for a half decade to decade :).
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