As a young man of 20 in his first job at a state-owned enterprise in China, Guoli Chen found senior management fascinating, but not in a good way. His boss’s boss did very little—unless one counts reading newspapers, drinking tea, and gossiping as work. “I wondered whether anyone could replace him without affecting the [organization’s] overall performance,” recalls Chen, now a professor of strategy at INSEAD.

He didn’t stick around to find out. After two years, Chen moved on. His second job couldn’t be more different, in culture as well as the lessons he learned. Working in an investment bank, Chen observed how the company’s venture capital arm picked firms chiefly on the strength of the founding team, especially the chief executive. “Given the uncertainty of the [firms’] business potential… the VC literally bet the success of their investments on the individual,” Chen says in an INSEAD Knowledge podcast.

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