Anatomy of a CEO
Before we dig our teeth into the meaty core of this article, let us regale you with a tale to set the stage.
Adam was a young entrepreneur with a dream. Adam had managed to come up with an idea so unique and profitable that every battle-hardened professional in the business world was calling Adam a visionary and his business idea a unicorn. Adam had an idea that wasn’t just lightning in a bottle, it was the whole damn storm in a big-ass jug. Adam came up with the idea to buy property and allow people to lease the use of that space. We assume that he was smoking some mind altering future drug while also practicing ritualistic magic in the basement of a mansion haunted by the ghost of Albert Einstein. He was able to peel back the veneer of reality and come up with something so unique and earth-shattering that it shook the business world. Skipping ahead for the sake of our time and your attention. Adam got a SHITLOAD of money thrown at his future-drug black-magic unicorn idea. Adam, having gone from someone who could barely manage his bank account to someone who was managing a billion dollar company, did not do so hot at wrangling this unicorn. His spending habits and (arguably) poor decision making, as both an individual, and as CEO lost the company a ton of money, but not before he was able to secure a loan from HIS OWN COMPANY to buy FIVE mansions and a private jet for himself. Eventually, the company had to lay off 5000 people (which according to the census is the population of nearly 58 different cities and towns in the United States — give or take 50 people), and Adam stepped down as CEO. The story doesn’t end here though. Because Adam had crowbarred himself into the very genetics of the company, the primary investor had to PAY HIM $1B TO FUCK OFF. That’s right. Adam, who was a gigantic failure as a CEO is now a billionaire for just trying to be one. We didn’t make this up. This is real and actually happened.
Now, why tell this story? 1) We just like talking. 2) We wanted to illustrate that even someone who came up with an idea that’s nearly as old as prostitution — failed at it — and STILL got a $1B golden parachute. That is a level of mental comfort that the vast majority of us will likely never achieve.
We wondered, how can we bring this level of mental comfort to the every-person? The answer hit us like a Chris Brown right hook to Rhianna’s eye socket. A luxury experience designed to pamper you and take you out of the moment of your life, the more luxurious the experience, the less you have to worry about. Think of luxury hotels. They’ve got comfy beds, great food, great views, minimal bed bugs. It’s basically a small window into the lives that the extremely wealthy live everyday. So, we thought, why not make a business version of a luxury experience?
Minimally Useful Industries presents… CEO: Experience Theatre.
CEO:ET is a fully immersive experience that combines augmented reality, live actors, evolving set-pieces, outside-world simulation that all center around immersing YOU into the full CEO experience. You’ll finally understand the stress of making fuck-you money while designing your entire sociopathic worldview around generating shareholder value while maximizing the exploitation of human labor. Imagine a dinner theatre where the entire show centers around you, and best of all, the experience is fully customizable to generate your desired experience. Like any good luxury experience, everything is tailor-made to fit the customer’s needs. The whole experience is designed to let you feel the relief of earning multiple mega-yacht money, the power of controlling people’s livelihoods, and feeling like your decisions have an impact on the world at-large.
Here’s how the process works:
1) Personality exam.
- Understanding your deepest desires and motivations.
2) Experience type.
- What kind of business do you want to run?
- What’s the state of your business and the world?
3) Difficulty level.
- How difficult do you want your experience to be? To put it in snowboarding parlance -
- Do you want a green circle or a double black diamond? To put it in big business parlance: do you want Enron in late 2000 or Enron in late 2001? (reference material)
4) Premade Scenarios and add-ons.
- The premade scenario feature puts you in the shoes of a CEO mirroring an actual event that took place — like taking up the mantle of Apple CEO after the death of Steve Jobs.
- The add-ons feature allows you to add a la carte experiences like testifying before congress knowing that you totally did the thing that you’re saying you didn’t do.
5) Once the scenario is drafted, we let the scenario stew for about a week while we design the sets and our actors collect themselves to work on their roles.
6) Customer comes in and we begin the process of immersion with a few test scenarios to allow the customer to dip their toe in the water and allow them to get into character.
7) We roll full bore into the experience.
Over the next week or so we’ll be outlining the specifics of the process and talking about the outcomes. Stay tuned for developments on CEO: Experience Theatre and other things on the MUI Website.
XOXO
Minimally Useful Industries
