DJC Insights
Kill the Ego Before It Kills the Company
The Success Trap
Failure is hard to handle. But surprisingly, success is harder.
When you start winning—when the revenue chart goes up and to the right, when people start recognizing you at tech events in KL, when employees start laughing a little too hard at your jokes—a dangerous virus starts to infect your brain.
That virus is Ego.
You start thinking, "I am a genius." You start thinking, "I don't need to listen to customers anymore; I know what they want." You start thinking, "The rules don't apply to me."
This is the beginning of the end.
The "Smartest Guy in the Room" Syndrome
I have seen brilliant founders destroy their companies because they couldn't admit they were wrong. They surrounded themselves with "Yes Men." They refused to pivot because they had already declared their strategy publicly.
As Dave Chong, I constantly remind myself: My job is not to be right. My job is to find the right answer.
Those are two very different things.
- If I want to be right, I will argue with my engineers.
- If I want the right answer, I will listen to the junior developer who says, "Dave, this architecture won't scale."
Symptoms of Founder Ego
How do you know if you are infected? Check yourself for these symptoms:
- Defensiveness: When someone gives you feedback, do you immediately explain why they are wrong?
- Micromanagement: do you feel like no one can do the job as well as you?
- Blame: When things go wrong, is it always the market, the team, or the competitors—never you?
- Isolation: Are you the only one making decisions?
The Antidote: Radical Humility
To kill the ego, you must practice Radical Humility.
- Hire people smarter than you. If you are the smartest person in your company, you have failed. I hire people who make me feel slightly stupid in their domain of expertise.
- Seek dissent. At DJC, I explicitly ask my team: "Tell me why this idea is stupid." I reward the person who finds the flaw in my plan.
- Stay close to the ground. Don't sit in your ivory tower. Once a month, I do customer support tickets myself. I listen to the complaints. I feel the pain of the user. It keeps me grounded.
You Are Not Your Company
Finally, separate your identity from the business.
If DJC fails, I am sad, but I am still Dave. If DJC succeeds, I am happy, but I am still Dave.
When you attach your self-worth entirely to your startup's valuation, you become fragile. You become terrified of risks. You stop playing to win and start playing not to lose.
Stay humble. Stay hungry. And remember: The market doesn't care about your ego. It only cares about value.
Dave Chong DJC AI Sdn Bhd