What Tighe Burke Learned from Interviewing 1,000 CEO's

0:28Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. their$5 to$50 million businesses. And today we talk about performance versus entitlement, confidence and fits, the language of leadership, loyalty and tenure, corporate training grounds, and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Ty and our sponsors. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify, and start hearing Sign up for your$1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash on fire. Go to shopify.com slash on fire.

1:05Are you ready for the ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies? Build funnels, automate follow-ups, manage clients, and even white label your own software. Say hello to our featured partner, High Level, and visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial today. Ty, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What up, Fire Nation? It's good to be here. Um, okay. To answer directly, cause I deal with a lot of people who are indirect and we'll talk about that a little bit later, but you know, I think generally, um, I'm a big fan of history and like capitalist history and something that I think a lot of people are like generally weak now here we are in 2026 and entrepreneurs are no different in my opinion.

2:04I think a lot of the, like, like the bio hackers out there, all the tools for optimizing things is kind of like the perfect example of this. I think there's a lot of people who have convinced themselves it can't be effective unless like every single condition is perfect. Eight hours of sleep and a green or a ring score. And I don't know, blood sugar and perfect macros. And like, if you don't hit these things, what happens? You bet you can't make any big decisions today. And it just kind of feels like weakness sort of like disguised as self-improvement and you know I think about like again I think about I love history and I think about like Samuel Morris and I think about Eli Whitney and guys who like really took big swings when they didn't have anything they were you know relatively broke or you know aspiring and these guys were just like doing amazing things and they weren't tracking their heart rate you know I've I've got young kids and we have four amazing little kids and probably 75 % of the month I'm up at, you know, at any point in the middle of the night dealing with an accident or a sickness or someone fell out of bed or had a scary dream.

3:11Like it happens all the time with four little kids. And, uh, and I still have to wake up and solve problems the next day. And so like, there's just some times when I average five hours of sleep or six hours of sleep and I eat cold leftover pizza for breakfast. Well, Ty, not to go too far down this rabbit hole, but like what's one or maybe two books that you love in that genre you're talking about, this historical biography? My favorite book in this sort of genre is Americana. It's a book by Boo Sreenivasan. And it's super cool because it like takes you through like actual entrepreneurship from the formation of the Virginia company 400 years ago, all the way up into Obama's presidency.

3:55specifically focused on the United States. And it's just like super, super cool, I think. Okay, I got a book for you. It's called 950 Million in 40 Minutes. Is that like how much time we have on this earth? It is an amazing rollercoaster biography of a financier. And it's a true biography with a crazy story. I'm reading it right now. I'm about 65 % of the way done. It's fantastic. So I'll read Americana. You'll read 950 million in 40 minutes and we'll both be better for it. And Fire Nation, we're talking about lessons learned from interviewing 1 ,000 CEOs. And I want to talk about performance versus entitlement because, Ty, it seems like proven CEOs, they push for, let's just call it performance-based pay and the upside as well.

4:44While these like wannabe whiners, they're demanding the highest base salary and they feel entitled to guaranteed money for some pathetic reason. Why is this the case? Everyone wants to know how much the top dog is making because they're curious and because they aspire to do that. And so this conversation comes up all the time. And really what I think it comes down to is proven CEOs have done this thing before and they know what the outcome will be. They know what levers to pull. They know what metrics matter. They know how to drive results, and they're going to bet on themselves. They're willing to hold themselves accountable for growth.

5:18They don't need you to protect them with guaranteed money or anything because they're just so damn confident that they're going to win. Whereas the aspiring wannabe person might be a little bit more concerned about downside because they're not actually sure if they can deliver. They may not even be confident about the business model. And so they kind of need this sort of safety net. In fact, we were working on a CEO search a couple of months ago, and I had two candidates for the same role. This guy, Rick, who lives in the Bay Area, he'd been a CEO before. And, you know, Bay Area is obviously quite expensive to live in.

5:52And I loved his answer. He's like, look, I need probably 150K base salary to cover my bills. But everything else, I want an upside. Everything else, I want an kickers. everything else I want an equity ownership incentivized. And I'm just like, hell yeah. You know, like he wasn't ultimately the right guy for the job, but that sort of attitude, like he was proven, he knew exactly what he could do. There was another candidate, Melissa, a brilliant operator, Ivy league educated, crazy self-awareness, but she was going to be a first time CEO. And she was like, I want a$300 ,000 base and like ideally 400 total cash plus equity.

6:29And so, you know, if you can contrast these two, Rick's comp structure was like, I'm so confident I'm going to win. I don't need you to guarantee it. I'm going to put this company on my back and we're going to go to the moon. Whereas Melissa was just like, you know, protect me if this doesn't work out a little bit. And that's kind of the difference between the proven and the wannabes. I want to talk about the language of leadership, because this is kind of what it seems like we're getting towards. and specifically what do the words like we and us versus the words like I and me and my, like what are those two different kind of sides of the equation reveal about a candidate's leadership mindset, like their actual mindset?

7:10It's a super interesting question. And the answer you can really only pick up on after having done like lots and lots of interviews like this and just the subtlety of it. But, you know, when somebody tells me about a major win, a campaign that crushed it or a great product launch or a turnaround, a company that was bleeding money and they got it around, like usually I'll say, OK, cool. Tell me a little bit more about that. Like, let's dig in. Who else was involved in that? And what was your influence there. And the, the right sort of answer is like, you know, we're, you're hiring a leader of people when you're hiring an operator.

7:50When I say operator, I mean like a GM, a CEO, a president, whatever. And the, the real like true bonafide operators immediately talk about their team. They'll say things like we had this really into engineer who figured out X, Y, Z, or our sales lead came up with a new way to score leads or, uh, you know, our product development team figured out a way to cut costs and blah, blah, blah. Like the, the right operator, they're giving credit away because it's like, they're secure. They're, you know, like they're personally secure. They know their worth. They know that these people wouldn't have come together had it not been for them.

8:26They weren't the ones doing it. But like the other side of it is the, you know, that we'll hear people say, well, it was my idea. I developed a strategy. I drove execution and I delivered the results, even though I know damn well that they had a team of 50 people underneath them doing this, this thing. So it's just like the subtlety of how they position it. And then you need to like take that and almost transfer it over to your company and your culture. Like, do you want somebody who as talented as they may be is like talking about me and my, and, you know, or do you want someone talking about we and us.

9:00Most people would choose the latter, I think. So it's a really interesting insight. Fire Nation, we're going to talk about loyalty and tenure, corporate training grounds, when it's not a fit, and so much more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Let's talk about that level up mindset. You know, the one you need to take your business from comfortable to next level amazing. In this stage, the basic stuff matters, like how you communicate with customers, which is why today's episode is sponsored by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the modern alternative to run your business communications. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2 with over 3 ,000 reviews.

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12:29So visit highlevelfire.com to start your free trial and see why thousands of businesses are switching. That's highlevelfire.com, where marketing, sales, and automation finally come together. High level, join the revolution. Ty, we're back. And as I kind of teased before the break, I want to talk about loyalty and tenure. I mean, what do multiple five to 10-year runs tell you about an operator's reliability? And why do you feel like job hoppers signal a completely different type of motivation? This is something that I think a lot of people get tripped on all the time. Uh, particularly if you're hiring an executive and you see, you know, I call it like the Uber effect used to be the Google effect, but you know, things have changed.

13:14Uh, you see Uber or you see Google or you see some cool, sexy company on their resume. You're like, Oh my God, it could be amazing. We hired this person because they worked at Uber, but like they ran a, you know, small division for Uber eats for 11 months. And then, and then, and then, you know, it didn't work out and they went somewhere else. Like that person is not a builder. That person's probably, I mean, they're probably very smart, obviously, but they're, they're not the, they don't have a track record of long-term success. When we see people, when we see candidates who have multiple like five to 10 year runs at different companies, it tells you that the person is a builder that they're, you know, they stick around through hard times through thick and thin.

13:56Um, they're reliable. There's a commitment that they're willing to make. That's someone who's like willing to solve problems instead of necessarily running from them. Now, job hoppers, on the other hand, these are people who jump every like six to 18 months. And there's sometimes there's reasons that people change jobs. Of course, there's reasons. Of course, there's good reasons. But if it's a theme, like my boss and I didn't see eye to eye or the company went bankrupt or the company was acquired or or, you know, something happened personally, like, but it's becomes a theme every, you know, two, two years or one, one year or whatever.

14:31It just feels like they're probably chasing something else. Maybe it's title, maybe it's compensation, maybe they just get bored, but they're not really like building anything. They're not necessarily invested in what I think are like long-term outcomes. And why this matters is because great companies are going to go through hard times. It happens to everyone. And so when your business hits a rough quarter, which it will, the person who's got this track record of sticking it out and being part of the solution and like they have stayed with companies for long runs, they're part of the solution, right?

15:04The person who has a track record of jumping from company every six to 12 months, they're already, you know, raising their flag on LinkedIn. Like they're already talking to recruiters like me, like they got one foot out the door already. So that's why it's, you know, you want people who've kind of weathered storms and been part of the solution to come out on the other side. And I think we've all met those people in life too, where they're just always, the grass is always greener on the other side. So no matter where they are, it's always like better over there across the pond, across the river, across that bridge.

15:36And I think that kind of maybe even moves us on to the next point, which is corporate training grounds. Because let's be honest, experiences at certain companies are different and can way more or less depending on those companies. So Ty, specifically, how do experiences at companies like P &G, IBM, and Nestle, how do those experiences shape operators who can actually run any business, whether it's a startup or not? I love these types of people. I mean, most of the companies that we work with today are kind of like in the five to a hundred million kind of revenue range. And so startups, mature startups, whatever, they've been in the market for a while.

16:15And, um, you wouldn't think that somebody coming from Procter and Gamble would necessarily fit in. Um, and, and I would agree that, or I would say that they probably wouldn't directly. I think there probably needs to be like, they would have worked at PNG earlier in their career, but I see this all the time where people from like Nestle and Procter and Gamble and IBM and, uh, Unilever and Clorox and like some of these, like, I don't know, a little more legacy companies. When you're a 20 something, these companies force you to kind of see the entire business. They've got these rotational programs.

16:50I did a huge project with General Electric probably 10 years ago, where basically they take graduates, recent MBA grads, and they put them through rotational programs, 12 to 18 months running an IT team, 12 to 18 months in sales, in procurement, in marketing. And kind of like by the time you're 30 years old or 35 years old, like you've seen how all the pieces connect. They'll move you to different countries, different regions. Like they do a really good job of developing leaders. And, and so what happens is that these people who go through these like large, you know, arguably boring companies, they understand how marketing affects supply chain, how finance constricts, constrains sales, like how product decisions impact operations.

17:35They've seen all this. And so, uh, it's just like this really interesting thing. we've noticed that candidates who are, you know, who've been in the workforce now for 30 or 40 years, many of them got their start at one of these kind of big operations. And so when they walk into your 10 or$20 million e-commerce company, uh, you know, ideally not directly from Nestle or something like that. Um, but they're not just like a marketing person or an operations person. They can run the whole damn thing. Cause like they've seen how it all works together at scale. And it's really, uh, it's just, you can really tell when you start talking to these types of people.

18:08They're just super well-rounded and they often make really good kind of general managers. Yeah. I mean, I can imagine that, you know, those companies like P &G and IBM, I mean, they've invested, you know, incredible amounts of money in these individuals, like with the training and the experiences. And now you're kind of getting that into your company essentially for free because you didn't directly pay for that. So you still need to know when it's not a fit. So let's talk about that, about knowing when it's not a fit for you, for your company, for your culture. I mean, why do real CEOs seem to recognize an opportunity isn't right for them while those whiner wannabes we've been talking about a little bit seem to struggle to accept that?

18:47I'll go back to Rick. I mean, when we talked about it, he was kind of like, look, I think this is something I could do. I'm not totally positive. And when I told him that we were going with somebody else, he's like, I get it, man. I understand. That makes sense. It's a very niche domain. Good luck. Good luck. Real proven CEOs, like they've got a clear sense of their strengths and their limitations. They know what they're good at. They know what they're great at and they know what they suck at. And they've kind of got this mature sort of self-awareness, self-assessment sort of, you know, work done.

19:15And when they see a role that doesn't necessarily play to their strengths, they're going to recognize it right away. And they're going to call it out too. They're going to say like, look, I, if you're looking for A, B, C, and D, I've got A and I've got C and a little bit of D, I definitely don't have B. And they're just honest with themselves because they want to set themselves up and, and the company for success. Whereas like the first time kind of want to be, and I look, I don't want to like, I want to be is cause, cause a lot of, you know, everyone needs to be given a CEO opportunity at some point.

19:43Um, but a lot of them are trying to prove themselves and they think if they try hard enough, they can do anything. They haven't necessarily learned their limits yet or, you know, understand the depth of working with a board or working with an international company or something. And so what they'll do is they'll kind of like twist their experience while I'm interviewing them to fit whatever they think I want to hear because they can't necessarily even admit it, that it isn't their sweet spot. I've had, I mean, I've had awesome, amazing CEOs say like, look, I could probably do this, but like, I don't think it's where I really shine.

20:17Like you probably want someone who knows direct consumer and that's just not me. I'm more of a retail guy. And so like that's sort of integrity. I just love it. It's like, ah, I, I really appreciate your honesty and your candor. And I, and I want to, you know, find a fit for you in the future. Um, but like, again, the other side of it, that, that, that first timer who steps in, uh, six months later, nine months later, when they kind of realize that they don't really love the job as much, and they're probably not as good at it. Everybody loses, right? They lose the company, lose, uh, everybody at all the employees, they're kind of back to square one.

20:54And so you really have to, there's kind of like this gut feel that has to happen where you're talking to the actual operator themselves and just understanding like how good and how strong they feel about their fit. I think it's a really important question to ask. Yeah, I love what you said towards the end there about how like now you are really rooting for these individuals who just know themselves very well. And like you're hoping that you can find them a fit in the future. So that's probably going to be beneficial for them because you're not thinking about them in a high light. And when an opportunity comes, you're going to be much more likely to be like, let me reach back out to this individual because I feel really good about him for those reasons.

21:31And let's just kind of end this with a bang tie because I want to talk to anybody who's looking to attract, to hire, or maybe become a true operator. What would you say in your experience is the single most important mindset that separates the long-term successes that you see from those short-lived ambitions? It takes time to find the right person. And if you're trying to hire an operator in 60 days or less, you might be able to do that. but typically you're going after people who are not necessarily looking for a job. You need to open up your network. People take vacations. These things just take time.

22:08And so having interviewed thousands of CEOs, placing hundreds of executives, one thing I've learned that's never failed me, this was taught to me by a chief HR officer for a publicly traded company. I had done a bunch of work with her. She's in the Bay Area. She'd been in software and tech for 40 years. And she's just amazing. And she said something so simple to me, which was, Ty, if there's any doubt, then there's no doubt. And I was like, okay, what do you mean? And she said, when you meet the right person, the right operator, you're going to know. There's not like, well, this person is good, but you know, X, Y, Z, or they check most of the boxes, except ABC, the right person feels obvious.

22:57Like you're excited about it. They're excited about it. And the fit just feels clear. I do believe there's, there's something with gut hiring. A lot of people may disagree with it. Of course, you have to be very thorough in your diligence of interviewing them and assessing them. But at the end of the search, like you're going to have one or two or three people to choose from. And like, you got to be comfortable with that person. And so the moment you have to convince yourself, like the moment you have to say that they're probably, you know, they could work out or you're talking yourself into like overlooking red flags or hoping that they're going to grow into the role.

23:32You're kind of already lost. That doubt is in your gut telling you something's wrong. Listen to it. Even if it sucks, even if you have to search to search over, you've been looking for someone for four months, it's way better to get it right running an eight month search than it is having to do two searches in a year for not having the right person. And so like, I would say, listen, listen to that. You know, the, the right person is going to know their limitations. Uh, but the right person's also, you're going to feel good with them. And, and the best hires that we've ever made, that sort of felt inevitable and the worst ones.

24:06And we've made, you know, we've made some bad hires before there was doubt. There was doubt that this person would be X or would have the personality to deal with the company or be a culture fit or be able to grow the company. And the worst hires we've made is when we've ignored that doubt. So really, really try to listen to yourself and give yourself an honest assessment of who you're hiring. Ty, if Fire Nation is listening right now and they just are really connecting with what you're saying and they want to connect with you or your company and learn more. What is your call to action for our listeners today?

24:41We work with a lot of founders who want to open up door number three. So door number one is keep operating your company. And maybe you don't see time with your kids. Maybe you don't start that other business you want to do. Maybe you don't want to deal with investors, whatever. But there's some misery attached with door number one. Door number two is screw it. Let's sell this thing. Let's take the money and run. Door number three is this is a cash flowing asset that could potentially spit out even more cash with someone else running it. And I have, I can step away and I don't necessarily need to be involved in the day to day.

25:18That's where we come in. And so if you're feeling like that may be part of the case with you or your company, you can get in touch. Ty at search partners.com. You can find me on LinkedIn. And I'm happy to talk you through, you know, what sort of options you might have. Well, Fire Nation, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with TB and JLD today. So keep up that heat. For links to everything that we've talked about today, visit eofire.com. Just type Ty, that's T-I-G-H-E in the search bar. And the show notes page will pop right up with links to all that stuff.