Chris Yeh

In contrast, Apple’s highly centralized approach allows it to produce highly integrated and polished products, but, as a result, it restricts itself to a much smaller product line. Of course, this is intentional; Steve Jobs always wanted to run as close to single-threaded as possible to maintain Apple’s unity of purpose

For example, I was one of the first start-up leaders in Silicon Valley to borrow the “chief of staff” concept from the realm of politics and established corporations. Unlike a traditional assistant or even a technical assistant, your chief of staff should amplify your business impact: he or she should be a businessperson who can not only make certain decisions for you but also triage the important decisions that you have to make yourself. A chief of staff can also make sure that all the people who want to meet or interact with you are “briefed” in advance so that your time together can be as efficient and effective as possible. My first chief of staff, Ben Casnocha, was a successful author and entrepreneur before we began working together; my second, David Sanford, had worked with me at LinkedIn and had also been an entrepreneur (and a restaurateur!). It turned out that Ben and David were better at organizing my own life than I was; I’ve become significantly more productive since they started amplifying my efforts. To learn more about the role and value of a chief of staff, I recommend that you read Ben’s essay on the topic, “10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman,” which you can find on his personal website, Casnocha.com.

Once you begin to appreciate the power of amplification, you can find many ways to scale yourself. For example, one of the things you need to do is to process information about your company, your industry, and the world as a whole. I have a freelance researcher on my team, Brett Bolkowy, who helps me learn new things and answer key questions by finding the best information on any particular topic. Another key team member, Ian Alas, helps me with creative projects like the visual summaries I prepare for my books. The slide shows he created for my book The Start-up of You have been viewed nearly fifteen million times. Now that’s amplification!

Nor am I unique in this. For example, Mark Zuckerberg has a substantial team to help him manage his social media communications so that when he travels and meets people, he can maximize the impact of his interactions.

Trusted employees, freelancers, or even a team of outside consultants can be your amplifiers. The official nature of the relationship is less important than having assistance that you can trust.