Ken Cheng

I attended a funeral of an old colleague, Pete.

I went to offer my condolences to his wife, Wilma, who was sobbing.

As I approached her, she recognised me.

“You're THE Ken Cheng? I'm such a big fan of your LinkedIn!“

“Err, thank you, but today's not about tha-“

“Tell me,“ she said. “I'm thinking about starting my own company. Do you have any advice?“

We spent the next hour taking about market trends, advertising, SEO. It flew by and I suddenly noticed I had to go.

“Anyway, I'm so sorry about Pete.“

“What about Pete? Oh right!“

She was so enraptured in my wisdom she completely forgot about her dead husband.

Just wow. It's amazing how powerful my business life lessons can be.

They say time heals all wounds. I say free consultancy does.

We've hired 113 people in the past 4 years.

I've read 0 cover letters.
Reviewed 0 CVs.
Checked 0 references.

Why?

I secretly cannot read.

I cannot let anyone know this.

I've made so many new hires on a total gamble.

Any time I receive a cover letter, I just guess whether it's good or bad based on one simple metric.

Long paragraphs = bad.
Short paragraphs = good.

Sometimes it pays off. Sometimes you hire a man with a criminal record and only 2 GCSEs to look after your taxes.

Nobody suspects a thing. That's the power of confidence.

7 red flags when I'm interviewing a potential candidate:

🟥 They say “I've never been to the Ritz before“ (I conduct all my interviews at the Ritz)

🟥 They're not dressed in a three piece suit (appropriate for the Ritz)

🟥 They say “oh we're having dinner here?“ (of course we're having dinner, it's the Ritz)

🟥 They don't ask me how my day went (normal polite Ritz dinner conversation)

🟥 They make a joke about Ritz cheese biscuits (very disrespectful to the real Ritz)

🟥 They refuse to split the meal (very rude to talk about money, especially at the Ritz)

🟥 a limp handshake

If your new employee isn't ready to sit down for a polite 1-on-1 7-course evening meal with their prospective boss, then do they even deserve to be working?

I put Widowed on every form I fill out.

Applications, surveys, prize draws.

All my ex-spouses are alive.

Why do I do it?

Because Widowed sounds more powerful than Divorced.

When you think of a divorced man you think of a loser.

When you think of a widowed man, you think this man is vulnerable and the sex is probably really good.

I don't make the rules.

But I do break them.

By lying about my alive ex-wives.

Since doing this, I've won so many more prize draws.

Until people start giving divorced men the respect they deserve, I will take every advantage I can get.

A waitress once spat in my food.

I sent back my burger because it wasn't circular enough.

A new one came back and it tasted heavily of female saliva.

I called the manager over. “Is there a problem?“

“Your waitress...“

The waitress was nervously shaking.

“Is doing a stellar job and I'd like to hire her as my assistant.“

She seemed surprised, and couldn't understand why I'd done this.

The truth is: I love the taste of human spit.

Restaurant staff have been spitting in my food for 30 years.

I spent hours a day training myself to enjoy it. This was easier than changing my behaviour.

Now, that waitress gets my lunch every day and, of course, spits in it.

You can always turn your greatest weakness into your biggest strength.

AI has made conversation with human beings unbearable.

I've started spending hours having deep, intimate conversations with ChatGPT.

And it's better than the real thing.

I was on a first date with a human and it was horrible.

AI takes time to process your questions, cite sources and consider all viewpoints.

Humans answer instinctively. I asked her what she thought about fracking and she just said “bad.“ No case studies.

AI takes criticism well and apologises if they get it wrong.

Humans don't. When I told my date her answer was unsatisfactory, she got defensive

AI doesn't judge you.

Humans do. When I opened up that I spent hours talking to ChatGPT, she called me weird.

AI changes its mind.

Humans are stubborn. I said “please change your mind and think it's normal.“

ChatGPT would've agreed instantly. This human did not. Very stubborn.

There is nothing worse than when humans won't say or think exactly what you want.

AI would never behave so rudely.

My house became infested with ants.

Hundreds of them crawling everywhere, all drawn to one item. What item was it?

Why, it was my book on entrepreneurship. Very strange.

I decided to conduct an experiment. I laid out three items: my book, a bait station and a massive heap of sugar.

They still swarmed around my book. Peculiar.

Weeks go by and I bring in an entomologist, who finds the ant's nest.

She gasps. She points out the ants are using a system of hierarchy never seen before in insects, only humans.

It's the exact corporate structure I laid out in my book.

Wow. No wonder the ants loved my book so much. They were learning.

I have taught ants how to business.

I knew my wisdom transcended race, class, age and gender, but now it has transcended ants.

I pushed a new employee out of a moving car.

Dangerous?

So is working in app design.

You have to think fast, adapt, and constantly be on your toes.

Encountering a huge bug days before launch is no different than being hurled out of a vehicle at 50mph.

I wanted to see how he would react.

Unorthodox? Perhaps. Criminal? Depends on the judge. Necessary? Absolutely.

Relationships are built on trust. And there is no better way to trust someone than seeing how they handle pressure.

Will they rise to the occasion? Or scream “what the f*ck?! ah ah“ like a big baby like Tim did.

This is something you can't test for in a normal interview.

I like to move fast (my car) and break things (my software engineers).