Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

You want board members who are truly, deeply excited by what you’re making. Who can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to. Who aren’t just there for the meetings but are with you day in and day out, helping you, finding opportunities for you to succeed. You want a board that loves your company. And that your company loves back.

stupid waste of time and resources.

Even big projects within a company should have a mini-board—a collection of helpful execs who can work to guide a project lead and step in if things go sideways.

Inexperienced boards

Even the most incredible CEOs in the world still need a board. Not the meetings, necessarily, but the advice of smart, invested, experienced people.

Dictatorial boards

Indifferent boards

Bad boards come in all shapes and sizes and screw up in a million different ways. But they generally fall into three categories:

Happy, functional, effective boards are all relatively small, full of experienced operators who have built companies before, think of themselves as mentors and coaches, and actually do the work—they help you recruit and get funding and expand your expertise, sharpen your business and product strategy, watch for land mines, and give it to you straig