Eric Siu argues CEOs and entrepreneurs should stay directly accessible to customers and followers instead of delegating this to assistants or AI. He shares how an EA taking over his calendar backfired, and recommends outsourcing only tasks you genuinely lack time for, not your availability to people.
Jason Fried tweeted this. So he says, no, I don't have an assistant. No, I don't have an AI or anyone reading or answering my emails or posts on my behalf. Yes, my email address is very public. Yes, I get as many emails as you do, probably more. Yes, I have time to get back to people who write me, not instantly, but eventually within reason. This is the highlight for me. A big part of my job is being accessible to customers, readers, followers, et cetera. That's what a CEO should be doing, staying in touch, hearing from people directly, responding to folks personally, sharing a pulse. If you don't have time, cut other things, don't cut this. If you're an entrepreneur and you outsource your availability, you're hurting yourself. And your business, especially as you're getting going. So that part, I think that's where I personally struggled with in the past, where I let the EA take control of my full schedule and I just had random things showing up right onto my calendar. Your calendar is managed pretty well, I would say, and I don't think you outsource your availability. I think you outsource more so it's jobs that you don't have the time to do. Correct.
