Every Tech Company Needs a Dennis Crowley
Ad Age’s Edmund Lee wrote an absorbing profile of Dennis Crowley, co-founder and chief executive of Foursquare, that attributed his company’s success largely to his media and marketing-savvy rather than his technological prowess.
While it may be curious that advertisers, investors, and Foursquare’s ever-growing horde of users continue to maintain faith in the company’s fortunes, this allegiance has almost entirely to do with the enchantments of a single person: Mr. Crowley. He is part of this late generation of entrepreneurs — showmen and polymaths, ringleaders of a geeky, sometimes awkward sort who dominate whatever conversation they’re having. But unlike other internet celebrity founder-CEOs — Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg or Google’s Larry Page — Mr. Crowley isn’t a master of computer science or an impresario of technology. His particular talent, according to those who know him, lies in his awareness of something his more highly remunerated contemporaries are often criticized for lacking: how media works.
“I’m not an engineer,” he says. “I tell the story. That’s what I do.”
His early boss in the ad business agrees. “He’s one of the best storytellers of his generation,” Michael Duda, the ad exec and entrepreneur, tells me. “He comes from a marketing-journalism background, and he knows how to tell a story and killer products tell a great story.”
It’s easy to forget that the principle responsibility of any CEO is to be their company’s Chief Story Teller or Chief Evangelist. So many tech start-ups are led by engineering geniuses, not storytelling ones. The skill can certainly be taught — as a communications consultant, I can attest to that — but just ask Apple what it means to have a natural storytelling talent at the helm of a technology company.