… And for any new readers, welcome to Signal // Noise — the newsletter read by founders, CEOs, and scrappy builders every Thursday. Each week, what I’m listening to, one deep dive, notes from the field, three links worth your time. No buzz, no bullshit.

35 years ago last week, Nevermind and Blood Sugar Sex Magik came out on the same day, which feels unfair to every other day in music. This week's pick is the most underrated song on Nevermind.

🎧 Want the whole vibe? Find & bookmark the running playlist right here.

A founder in a CEO community I'm part of posted something last week that I've heard a hundred times in the last few years, and I've lived it myself, too.

His B2B software company is highly profitable and on a growth tear.

But for years, he grew steadily and slowly, and didn't need any “controls”. He was in every meeting, saw every deal close, watched every expense. Like many founders, he reviewed every transaction, every month.

But because of recent growth, headcount doubled. He hired three middle managers. Six-figure projects started getting approved without him really being involved.

One morning he realized spend was running 100% over the “budget number” he'd agreed on with his COO, and it felt like projects that should have been done in three months were taking nine, and payroll, despite being up 2x in the last year, didn't seem to account for any of the actual growth.

So he asked:

Those sound like four problems, but, shocker — they're only one.

You're the budget, because you see every dollar; you're the dashboard, because you're in every meeting; and you're the deadline, because projects move at your speed (and you move fast).

That works for the first few million, maybe a bit more, depending on headcount.

But then the company grows past what you can physically see, and if nothing replaces you, you inevitably become the bottleneck.

And if you're profitable, you probably won't notice at first because nothing breaks; it just gets slower and more expensive, one reasonable-sounding decision at a time.

The fix isn't getting back into every meeting. It's building, on purpose, what you used to provide by default.

You built the company by caring more than everyone else, by being everywhere, making every call, and outworking everyone in the building. That's how it's almost always done.

And despite what some may preach, the next stage isn't working less, delegating, and praying that the team “cares as much as I do”.

Because guess what?

They won't.

In fact, nobody will care as much as you do.

But the next stage is building more versions of you, and better ones: more skilled in their lane, clearer on what they own, and held to the same standard you've always held yourself to.

I went a little deeper on all four of the systems above, including the templates, the questions to ask before approving new spend, and my own meeting rhythm, in this week's full post.

Read the full breakdown →

The most expensive mistake you'll probably make isn't a product decision or a pricing call, but rather hiring the wrong senior leader to run growth or product.

Get it wrong and you could lose a year, a chunk of budget, and momentum that's hard to win back. And it usually happens for one of two reasons:

So I decided to do something about it.

I've partnered with Tighe Burke and SRCH Partners, a boutique executive search firm, to launch the SRCH Growth & Product Function, which I'll be leading. In practice that means I help you scope the role, tap into my network, help you build the candidate assessment, and vet the finalists the way a founder would, because I've been one. If you're making a senior growth, product, or marketing hire, just reply to this email and I'll tell you if we can help.

Rob Litterst rounded up 14 AI monetization trends, and one stat stuck with me: when customers turn down AI features, 47% of vendors say it's because the pricing is unpredictable, and only 39% say it's too expensive. Your buyers will pay more. They just won't sign up for a bill they can't forecast.

With AI doing more and more of the doing, it's tempting to manage from altitude. Viktor at The Ascending World makes the case against it. The founders who stay close to the actual work are the ones who still know what good looks like.

Whether you're an AI alarmist, a realist, or an optimist, Ezra Klein's conversation with Nvidia's Jensen Huang is worth your time. Huang thinks the doomers are mostly scaring people and that if AI products aren’t ready to ship, CEOs of the Frontier Labs just shouldn’t ship em’. I love listening to incredibly smart people have these sorts of complicated discussions.

One more thing: if you're hiring a head of growth, product, marketing, or content, just reply to this email. I'll do a free 20-minute call to talk through the role, what the seat actually needs, and whether we can help.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

And until next time, thanks for reading.

Jordan