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For C-suite, founders, and rising managers

Your personal board of directors.

A thinking partner for the calls you can't outsource.

How do I tell a star performer the promotion isn't coming?
On the board's desk right now
High Output Management
High Output Management
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Good to Great
Good to Great
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Lenny's Podcast
Lenny's Podcast
Acquired
Acquired
Masters of Scale
Masters of Scale
How I Built This
How I Built This

5,000+ books. 6,700+ podcast episodes. HBS, Wharton, and Stanford case studies. Cited on every answer.

Companies in our case studies
GoogleNetflixMicrosoftPixarAmazonSpotify
Real questions, real operators

These are actual questions people have asked the board.

Every answer is cited. The number next to each question is how many sources PathMBA pulled to answer it.

01
My best engineer wants the director role but isn't ready. How do I have the conversation without losing her?
6 sources cited
→
02
I'm a first-time VP of Engineering. What does the first 90 days actually look like?
6 sources cited
→
03
My co-founder and I disagree on who to hire next. How do other teams decide without breaking trust?
6 sources cited
→
04
Board meeting in two weeks. The quarter was bad. How do I frame it without hiding it?
6 sources cited
→
05
We're scaling from 12 to 40 in six months. Which org design mistakes kill companies at this stage?
6 sources cited
→
06
One of my reports cries every 1:1 now. I don't know what to say. What's the actual move?
6 sources cited
→
How an answer looks

Every answer cites its sources.

You
I'm promoting my best IC to manager next month. She's never led before and I'm worried about the transition. How do I set her up to succeed?
PathMBA

Three things tend to decide whether a new manager transition holds or breaks, and the research converges on them. First, new leaders who secure a visible early win inside the first 60 days — something the team can point to — dramatically outperform the ones who spend that window "just listening." [1][3]

Second, the transition almost never fails for technical reasons. It fails on emotional reflexes: a strong IC keeps solving problems instead of delegating them, and the team learns their new manager is still their old peer with a title. Name this out loud with her — the pattern is predictable and pre-empting it lands better than correcting it later. [2][4][5]

Third, schedule the feedback loop before she needs it. Weekly 30-minute 1:1s with you for the first 90 days, a structured skip-level at day 60, and a written debrief at day 90. Without this, problems surface as attrition. [3][6]

Sources · 6
  1. [1]The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New LeadersMichael Watkins · Book
  2. [2]Why New Managers Fail — and How to SucceedLenny Rachitsky · Podcast
  3. [3]Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your HumanityKim Scott · Book
  4. [4]Psychological Safety and the Modern ManagerAmy Edmondson · HBR
  5. [5]High Output ManagementAndy Grove · Book
  6. [6]The Multiplier Effect: Becoming a Talent AmplifierLiz Wiseman · Book
Rehearse the promotion conversationTurn into a 90-day playbookAsk a follow-up
What the board has been reading

Every answer is sourced. Here's the shelf.

5,000+ business books, 6,700+ podcast episodes, and case studies from HBS, Wharton, and Stanford. The board reads, so you don't have to.

Books
5,000+
01
Good to Great
Jim Collins
02
Zero to One
Peter Thiel
03
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Ben Horowitz
04
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Daniel Kahneman
05
The Innovator's Dilemma
Clayton Christensen
06
Leaders Eat Last
Simon Sinek
07
Measure What Matters
John Doerr
08
High Output Management
Andy Grove
+4,992 more→
Podcasts
6,700+ episodes
01
Lenny's Podcast
Lenny Rachitsky
02
How I Built This
Guy Raz · NPR
03
Masters of Scale
Reid Hoffman
04
Acquired
Gilbert & Rosenthal
05
The Twenty Minute VC
Harry Stebbings
06
a16z
Andreessen Horowitz
07
First Round Review
First Round
08
Y Combinator
YC
Catalog continues→
Case studies
HBS · Wharton · Stanford
01
Google
Project Oxygen
Google · How Google sold its engineers on management
02
Netflix
Reinventing HR
Netflix · Netflix's famous talent doctrine
03
Microsoft
Growth Mindset
Microsoft · How Microsoft retrained its leaders
04
Pixar
Collective Creativity
Pixar · Inside Pixar's creative process
05
Amazon
Working Backwards
Amazon · Amazon's exact product operating system
06
Spotify
Platform Strategy
Spotify · Spotify's move into podcasting
07
Apple
Design as Strategy
Apple · How Apple's taste became a moat
08
Airbnb
Belonging at Scale
Airbnb · Airbnb's return-to-office crisis
+288 more→
Early feedback

What operators say after the first week.

“I promoted my best IC to manager and she struggled for months. I wish I'd had this on day one — the firing-the-friend playbook alone paid for itself.”

VP Engineering
Series B SaaS · 85 reports

“I'm a solo founder with no board. I used it before my first real board meeting and it read the room better than my lawyer did.”

Founder / CEO
Seed-stage fintech · 11 people

“Every answer cites where it came from. That's the difference. It's not an LLM dressed up as a coach — it's a research assistant with judgment.”

Chief Operating Officer
Growth-stage marketplace

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