Aug 29, 2026 · 20 min · 14 segments
There’s a number that may decide whether you keep the CEO job—and it isn’t in your budget or operating plan. It lives in the underwriting created before you took the seat, and your board is already…
Bill CanadyHost
Your team built it from what they think they can sell and what they think it'll cost.
What do we think will happen? The number I'm about to build is the top down and it answers a completely different one.
What has to happen for the people who wrote the check to make them a return that they promised to their own investors? In 30 years, I've never once seen those two documents agree.
What's on fire this week? You are the single point of translation between the money and the work.
If you're fluent in the work and you're not fluent in the money, you will present activity to people who are listening for arithmetic.
They'll nod politely, and what they'll hear is, he doesn't know how he gets there.
70% of PE-backed CEOs are replaced before their company exits, almost none for a bad quarter.
You need five numbers off a document you already have somewhere in your hard drive.
It's arithmetic about your own company, and you don't need to be a new in the seat.
Your team built it from what they think they can sell and what they think it'll cost.
What do we think will happen? The number I'm about to build is the top down and it answers a completely different one.
What has to happen for the people who wrote the check to make them a return that they promised to their own investors? In 30 years, I've never once seen those two documents agree.
What's on fire this week? You are the single point of translation between the money and the work.
If you're fluent in the work and you're not fluent in the money, you will present activity to people who are listening for arithmetic.
They'll nod politely, and what they'll hear is, he doesn't know how he gets there.
70% of PE-backed CEOs are replaced before their company exits, almost none for a bad quarter.
You need five numbers off a document you already have somewhere in your hard drive.
It's arithmetic about your own company, and you don't need to be a new in the seat.
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