Vinod Khosla: Good boards challenge a founder and help them think multidimensionally

“In private companies, a board’s job should be to challenge a founder, have them think differently, have them consider issues that aren’t natural to them… I’ll even sometimes with founders take positions I don’t believe in, only because I want them to think from that angle… because the job is to have them think multidimensionally.”

He continues:

“Founders usually come from one background so they have a singular perspective as opposed to a multidimensional perspective of lots of experience. And so I try to add that element. I think good boards should do that.”

Having said that:

“A board comes in once every 6-8 weeks… The founders are there 80 hours a week. There’s no way a board can know all the nuances of your business and so they shouldn’t be pretending they can make decisions.”

Vinod argues that the only decision boards can do reasonably well is assess if the CEO is doing a good job and replace the CEO if it is necessary. However, replacing the CEO should be avoided if possible:

“If you have to replace the CEO, you’ve lost the essence of a company. So we tried really, really hard to make a founder successful by surrounding them with people who make up for whatever experience they don’t have.”

Full video: Startup Grind “Entrepreneurs, Don't Be Afraid to Fail | Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures)” (Feb 2015)