Mark Hoffman’s Fourth Run: Enquisite (Part 4)

SM: What year did you take Sybase public?

MH: That happened in 1991. I stayed there until 1995.

SM: What was your experience like after Sybase became an established leader?

MH: We grew it to 5,000 people. We had operations all over the world and I learned that companies go through phases. We saw very early on that there was a transition phase at the $5-6 million mark in terms of management techniques. There seemed to be another one around the $25 million range. Once you reach $100 million, you again need to go through a managerial changes and it requires people who have bigger experiences. I made it through all of those phases as the CEO.

SM: Which is something I find very interesting, since most founders do not. What were your personal choices and decisions that allowed you to make that transition?

MH: I think part of it was leadership training at West Point. When you are in the Army, you are running companies and people. I think it helped to go to a larger company, AMDAL, to see the processes, how people interacted, and how the pieces fit together.

SM: I also find that for your level of success, you have a very balanced ego, which is unusual. Was that true of you when you were younger?

MH: I think I have always had a manageable ego. I have good confidence. I am not afraid to make decisions. I don’t think people really put together what it means to be the founder. People will tell me that I was lucky to be a part of all of these great companies. Luck has nothing to do with it; really hard work and long hours is how it gets done. There are a lot of decisions that are made when running a company, and you have to get the majority of them right. You don’t have to get every single one right, and you can even change direction on the big ones that you got wrong.

You have to get into the market, listen to the market, and the bring that back into the company. You may have to modify your product or organization if you are not selling enough. You have to adapt to changes within your organization as well as to changes external to it. I think that is the hard part.

A lot of younger entrepreneurs want to control the organization way more than they should. They have really smart people working for them and they try to dominate the company. A CEO’s job is not to dominate them but to enable them.

SM: Strong people do not like to work for people who dominate. If you do that, you will get people who are inherently weaker.

MH: Exactly. In the end there is someone who has to make a decision, and you are the final arbitrator. I had one guy at a conference who was saying the Internet was nothing and we would not have to pay attention to it for three to four years. It was one thing to say it to me, but when you go out and say it to everyone else in the company that is a different matter. I had to let him go.

This segment is part 4 in the series : Mark Hoffman’s Fourth Run: Enquisite
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