(Extracted from Bloomberg on Bloomberg)
Whether by building or buying, there are dangers in growth you ignore at great peril. We insist on management depth at every position. Lack of it would leave us vulnerable when someone quits or gets hit by a truck. (I want the loss of anyone in the company to hurt us, but not fatally, including the likes of me.) Every job performance review I give my direct-reporting managers includes the question, “Who’s your replacement? If you don’t have one now, I can’t consider you for bigger things. If you don’t have one the next time I ask, you may no longer be a direct report.”