Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot's CTO and billionaire co-founder, decided before the company launched that he would never manage people directly. For 16 years as HubSpot grew to 7,000 employees, he's kept that promise by finding ways to avoid the responsibility.
The week we were thinking about starting HubSpot, we went through this list of questions. Who should be CEO? I'd been CEO twice before of a startup and I didn't want to be CEO and he did want to be CEO. Easy, done. Awesome. Next one down the list, like, Brian, I don't really want to manage anyone. And that, like, there's a pause. Like, what do you mean? It's like, I like never, ever, ever want to have any direct reports. Like none, zero, ever. It's like, okay, fine, Dharmesh. No, that's okay. And so we agreed to that and we have stood by it. You know, we have 7,000 people in the company. The company is 16 years old. I have never had a direct report. And the reason is because I'm very, very good at finagling myself out of things that I don't enjoy.
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