Giving Credit is the CEO’s Job

At last year’s Apple Keynote, Tim Cook closed with the following:

I especially want to thank all the people from Apple that were so involved. Please stand up. Everyone from Apple that was involved in these products, please stand up. They are the reason that we can create great products like this and have events like this to hopefully make all of our customers happy.

This made me smile.

Too often founders and CEO’s get all the attention and credit when in reality, the team made it happen.

As the founder of Product Hunt, much of the media has focused on me. This is flattering but makes me uncomfortable. I take pride in what I’ve accomplished but it’s only made possible with help from my teammates. They deserve the same recognition I receive and that’s why I believe it’s important to give credit. Even small things like highlighting those that built new features in our “release notes” is meaningful:

These acknowledgements take little effort but for some, have significant meaning and that’s why I’ve tried to make it a habit to give credit also in my day-to-day conversations.

Add your teammates on Product Hunt

Since Product Hunt began, we’ve acknowledged makers of products using an “m” badge within the product discussion. Until recently, makers had no ability to add their teammates to give them the same recognition. Thanks to Andreas, Lukas, Jonno, makers can now add others that helped them build the product, by simply clicking the “add teammate” button and entering their Twitter username.

It may appear like a small thing but we believe it’s important to give others recognition and opportunity to take pride in their creation.

This is just a reminder

Between the craziness of startups and furious keyboard slapping, it’s easy to forget to give recognition. I hope this is just a reminder for most and I encourage you to give your teammates a hat tip on Twitter, Slack, or email right now. ☺

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