I Wanna Be a CEO: the Google Fiefdom and Tom Tribone
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Why? Because it's way cool. CEOs get written up in books quite frequently, royal and compelling persons that they are. CEOs also build telescopes, ride on Segway scooters and build “campuses” called Googleplex, and can take a swim in their company's “Swimming Treadmill” after their lunchtime massage.
Movie stars are not the only ones who get idolized and praised for their already glamorous if not perfectly exciting jobs. So it is with the CEO. Take, for example, the case of Thomas Tribone, CEO and founder of Guggenheim Global Infrastructure Company. He is one of the main topics in the gloriously entitled, “What America Does Right,” the cover of which book is set in a bright, regal red with very moving subtitle “Learning from Companies That Put People First.” One could say that nurses, schoolteachers and stay-at-home-mothers are well established in the habit of “putting people first”.......... .When in the world did it become the norm for companies to squash people first anyway? Well, moralizing aside, Tom Tribone gets quite the royal treatment in the moving story about his childhood spent sweating in the steel mills of Pittsburgh. Then, after putting himself through college, he worked full time through his PhD studies. So already Thomas Tribone may not be your typical pampered, Ivy-League educated company leader. What else?
Well, in addition to the expected sappy tidbits offered about how Tom Tribone volunteers as a softball coach and is a bit of a bookworm, we do learn a few interesting facts. Mr. Tribone apparently has been a real advocate for employees in numerous situations whom he felt had been treated disrespectfully. Loyalty as well as a heartfelt trust in the competency of his charges does indeed seem to be rare these days. Apparently, Tom Tribone is no micromanager and believes in the ability of everyone to know their job well, certainly better than the administrators in an office.