Cameron HeroldFounder of the COO Alliance & Invest In Your Leaders Training

Why I Only Interview COOs

15 Apr 2026 · 1 min

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Cameron Herold interviews only COOs because they tell the operational stories CEOs skip: near-bankruptcies, CFO theft, lawsuits, the messy work of scaling. His eight-year podcast has produced roughly 500 episodes focused on what founders won't say.

Chapters

My podcast, I started 8 years ago. We've had about 500 episodes now. We only interview the COO of companies, and I did that because I wanted the rest of the story. I've, you know, I know Guy Raz, who runs How I Built This. We've hung out a bunch of times at the main TED conference. And, you know, he interviews these CEOs, entrepreneurs of companies, and I often know the CEO and I know the rest of the story that they're not sharing. You know, it's hard as the entrepreneur to talk about almost bankrupting the company, or when, you know, a CFO is stealing from you or being sued or just the operational— how hard it really is to grow something. It's not a story that people necessarily tell when you're the CEO, but it's a true story that there's a lot of lessons there.