Wed, 6 February 2019
“I don’t think CEOs should be able to be CEOs if they can’t code,” says Grant Petty, founder and CEO of Blackmagic Design. That’s a bold statement, but Petty is a bold guy. Working as an engineer in the television industry, he realized the technology was overpriced. So he started a company that cut costs and put power into the hands of creators. “Really what I was doing was a protest against the way the TV industry was,” he says. And soon, Petty began to challenge the status quo of business in general. He runs his company a little differently: There are no spreadsheets, very little planning, and to him, metrics hardly matter. “In the Western world, business culture becomes so rigid and so inflexible,” he says. “If you’re a creative person, you can get destroyed by that because they don’t allow you to exist.” Today, Blackmagic Design boasts nearly $300 million in annual revenue and is still 100% bootstrapped. Its technology is used by 80% of modern day feature films. We sat down with Petty to discuss what he’s learned about how to run a meaningful business in the face of opposition. Key Takeaways
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