Tony Perez On Security, Business, And Life
This chapter in my life began March of 2011. I was invited to join the team by Dre and Daniel. Coincidently, it ended on the month that I officially hit 6 years with the company. The idea was never mine, it belongs to Daniel; it was his vision, his idea. It was something I found fascinating and challenging, it was something I felt I could execute against.
We often joke that it’s about the experience, and what an experience it has been.
As humans I think we like to over-complicate things by putting things in boxes that we can come to terms with. Boxes that we can appreciate or that might make sense. I fear that this type of thinking truly inhibits us from being transformative in the way we think and behave.
We not only define and create these boxes, these molds, we also strive to be in them.
In a recent conversation, this statement was recently directed at me and I found it weighing on my mind. It was specific to being the CEO to the awesome company, Sucuri.
What exactly did they mean?
You don’t fail because you don’t have enough friends. You don’t fail because your idea isn’t unique. You don’t fail for lack of ideas. You don’t fail because of funding issues. You don’t fail because you were too early or too late to market.
You fail because you can’t execute. You fail because you can’t focus. You fail because you fail to embrace the grind.
When I sit back and study those that I aspire to be like, there is always one undeniable fact that makes them successful – their ability to execute. There ability to see something from beginning to end. The understanding that whether you are a team of 1, 50, or 5,000 this one simple concept will set you apart from the rest.
There is, however, a difference between blind execution and meaningful execution.
Too often though the more common execution type employed however I see blind execution, work to do work. To those external it appears as if something awesome is happening, yet to those close it’s clear that nothing is really being done.
This past weekend I was reading Paul Graham most recent article, Mean People Fail. If you don’t know who Paul Graham is, and you’re in the tech startup world, do some homework.
He’s one of the most influential minds in the space today, followed by every would-be and successful entrepreneur in the world. I can’t think of a single person in the space that I have engaged with, from CEO’s to investors, that have not heard of or don’t read his articles.
This notoriety actually makes his most recent article all that more interesting to me.
I think perspective is determined by the side of the coin on which you sit. For instance, I read his article and I thought, “Who would knowingly be mean to Paul G.?”
It always amazes me how simple and yet complex a concept this is. I am not talking about software roles and responsibilities, I am talking about the people aspect of projects and businesses.
Everyone has an idea, everyone has an approach, and it feels as if the fields are always greener on the other side of the fence. Why is that? Why do we as humans have this urge? This need to interject and fiddle with theories and proposals. It is not just the person outside looking in, but the one inside looking out.
Why do you feel the need to get validation? This need to confirm that an idea may or may not work? These are the questions I find myself wondering these days.