Overview
- Go dark and execute: Stop talking to press and investors for six months—when you're missing numbers, nobody believes you anyway.
- Throw your predecessor under the bus: Reset earnings expectations by blaming the previous CEO; the stock won't drop since markets already priced in the failure.
- Double down on what's working: Find 3-5 surprise successes, promote their leaders, and give them more resources.
- Kill money-draining projects: Eliminate pet projects consuming time and management bandwidth, even if costs are modest.
- Lay off a third of the workforce: Do it all at once rather than death by a thousand cuts—too many people creates bureaucracy and demotivates top performers.
- Reduce layers and promote up-and-comers: Identify your top 20-30 ambitious managers, promote them, and ensure only one executive sits between them and you.
- Put your best person on your most important mission: Assign your single strongest leader to the one thing you must win.
- Acquire into 3-5 adjacent growth markets: Buy the best companies in growing areas you're not currently winning—you won't have bandwidth to build internally.
- Relaunch with a crisp message: After six months, unveil a coherent strategy, then go dark again and execute.
Takeaways
Marc Andreessen wrote this turnaround guide in 2007. The core insight: execute decisive layoffs and organizational flattening immediately rather than prolonging pain through incremental cuts.
Money talks, hype walks—when you're hitting your numbers, everyone thinks you're a genius and believes everything you say, no matter how silly.