When a Top Sales Rep Makes a Great VP of Sales
In this commentary, Jason Lemkin critiques the widespread practice of hiring a company’s top-performing account executive (AE) to become its Vice President of Sales. He explains that firms often scout high‑earning reps from fast‑growing companies like Brex, Talkdesk, or Algolia, woo them with lavish meetings, and promote them directly to VP based on impressive individual quota attainment (e.g., $2 million versus $700 k). Lemkin argues that such reps almost never have experience hiring, training, or scaling a sales team—skills essential for a VP role. He cites data that only about 1 % of these promotions succeed. The sole scenario where a top AE can thrive as VP is when they join a startup very early, essentially acting as a founder; this gives them time to learn, make mistakes, and build the first few sales hires. Otherwise, the lack of managerial background leads to failure.
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