The CEO's Blind Spot (And How to Fix It)

Business is Good with Chris Cooper · Aug 7, 2026 · 14m

When Thumbtack scaled from 40 employees to 400 in a single year, its founder realized he only recognized one in five people around the office water cooler. Worse, they didn't know him either, or the mission, or the values that were supposed to guide their decisions. So they stopped making decisions and started just showing up.

That's the CEO's blind spot: pouring energy into marketing to strangers, selling to new prospects, and building media for people you've never met, while the people already inside your business, your staff and current clients, quietly disengage. Growth becomes a hamster…