The transition from Founder to CEO is a watershed moment in your company, and in your life. A great Founder creates something from nothing. A great CEO takes the next step, and builds mechanisms of success. They turn that vision into a well-functioning machine. Becoming a great CEO is a matter of tactics and personal growth. Today, NFX General Partner Gigi Levy-Weiss reveals how to get there, with special guest Avishai Abrahami, the founder of Wix. Avishai built Wix into a company of about 5,000 people, with 1.4 billion in revenue. They’ll cover how Founders can become great CEOs, measurements that most startups miss, the difference between good failure and bad failure, and more. (edited) (0:00) Introduction: Gigi Levy-Weiss and Avishai Abrahami (1:29) The Success Journey of Wix (5:14) Mechanisms for Success and Role of a Manager in a Startup (10:02) Talent Acquisition and HR Processes in Startups (16:17) The Evolution of Talent Requirements as the Company Grows (19:05) The Importance of Measuring Business KPIs (22:34) The Role of Failure and Experimentation in Startups (25:28) Efficient Meeting Management in Growing Companies (30:56) The Significance of Clear Communication and Transparency in a Company (40:27) Efficiency of Remote Work vs. Office Work in Startups (44:55) Closing thoughts: Winners always want the ball when the game is on the line

Today I’m talking with Avishai Abrahami, the CEO of Wix. You might know Wix as a website builder. It’s a competitor to WordPress and Squarespace. Tons of sites across the web run on Wix. But the web is changing rapidly, and Wix’s business today is less about web publishing, and more about providing software to help business owners run their entire companies. It’s fascinating, and Avishai has built a fascinating structure inside of Wix to make all that happen.  Wix is also an Israeli company. Avishai joined from the company’s headquarters in Tel Aviv. And I’ll just tell you right up front that we talked about Israel’s war with Hamas and its impact on the company. And that this conversation was not always comfortable. But the main theme of our conversation was, of course, the future of the web, especially a web that seems destined to be overrun by cheap AI-generated SEO spam.Links:  Doom runs on Excel Wix will let you build an entire website using only AI prompts Wix.com Launches Wix ADI and Delivers the Future of website creation YouTube is going to start cracking down on AI clones of musicians The people who ruined the internet The restaurant nearest Google OpenAI can’t tell if something was written by AI after all AI is killing the old web, and the new web struggles to be born Squarespace CEO Anthony Casalena on why anyone makes a website in 2023 What will changing Section 230 mean for the internet? Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23742026Credits: Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright. The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

CEO and co-founder of Wix, Avishai Abrahami, shares tips for building standout websites, focusing on customer needs, AI in website development, making key decisions, and the importance of founder obsession. He discusses personal stories on websites, customer-centric products, AI advancements, and the significance of being obsessed in business.