The 22 best operators I have worked with and their number one trait

February 7, 2024

I have been fortunate to work or interact with some of the best operators in the world ranging from my time at Uber to my angel investments and people I have interacted with along the way (I probably forgot some - apologies in advance). They are all very different in how they operate but they all have something they truly excel at and which I have learned a tremendous deal from.

I believe that anyone who aspires to become a better operator could learn from them and I therefore decided to ask them 3 questions:

What do they consider the most important trait for a world class operator?
Who is the best operator they have ever worked with? (not someone in their current company).
What was that person world class at / what should we learn from that person

22 World Class Operators

Carly Lowery (Gateway 21, Copper, Coinbase, Uber)

Trait: Empowering others. The best operators surround themselves by people they trust to perform and create a platform for their empowerment.
Best operator you know: Ruth Bader Ginsberg (Former Associate justice of the Supreme Court)

Annie Case (Kleiner Perkins, Uber, Bain)

Trait: Taking initiative: The best operators take initiative and act like owners. They are constantly on the lookout for problems and opportunities. If they see a problem, they diagnose and fix it. If they uncover an opportunity, they run it down. They don't wait for someone else to do it, or to be asked to do it, they just get it done.
Best operator you know: Truly too many to count. Uber circa 2016 was full of them!

Gemma Bloemen (Creandum, Elder, Uber, Mckinsey)

Trait: Parallel processing; the best operators can run multiple projects and teams at the same time and quickly context switch to add value
Best operator you know: Maria Raga - (ex CEO Depop)
What is that person world class at? She's an authentic, empathetic leader who gets things done. She rallies and energizes people.

Erik Torenberg (Turpentine, Village Global, On deck, Product hunt)

Trait: Radical responsibility. They over-deliver regardless and never make excuses
Best operator you know: Qasar Younis (CEO, Applied Intuition)

Alan Chang (Fuse, Revolut)

Trait: Dig very deep (we must know the ground truth), never settle for anything less than the best (we only build Ferraris, not bicycles), we outwork competition (we compete with biggest companies in the world, they have more resources than us, the only way we can win is hire better people and outwork them)
Best operator you know: Nik Storonsky (Founder/CEO, Revolut)
What is that person world class at? Similar to above

Sasha Kaletsky (Creator Ventures, Bridgepoint, BCG, Uber)

Trait: Execute decisions fast (but sometimes make them slowly).
Best operator you know: Because this newsletter is on Substack, I will say Tyler Denk
What is that person world class at? What is most unique is his efficiency, both with his own time and that of those around him.

Mads Johnsen (Calm, Uber, Linkedin, McKinsey, Nokia)

Trait: Curiosity. The best operators ask "why" a lot. The continuous drive for a deeper understanding of problems, customers, metrics, and organization separates the great from the good.
Best operator you know: Gus Fuldner (SVP, Uber)
What is that person world class at? Gus somehow manages to understand seemingly every single small detail across his vast scope, while still providing the organization strategic direction and oversight

Steffen Tjerrild (Synthesia)

Trait: Bias to action, put the company first and go above and beyond.
Best operator you know: Thomas Kirk (Founder, FDM)

Carles Reina (Eleven Labs, Job & Talent, Sonatic, Tractable, Uber)

Trait: The best operators perform what seems magic to the naked eye but is a well-elaborated combination of hands-on execution, dynamic strategy, positivity and juggling unknowns. They are consistent every day regardless of the ups-and-downs.
Best operator you know: Kevin Dulsky (Partner, a16z) & Andrea Clarke (GTM Partner, a16z)

Emil Dyrvig (Relesys, Templafy, Dropbox)

Trait: Ability to create a winning team: Give me the 5th best product but the best team in any category and you will still win.
Best operator you know: Thomas Neergaard Hansen (President, Amplitude)

Tom Elvidge (Uber, WeWork, Arrival, Goldman Sachs)

Trait: Relentless problem-solver. Has the aptitude and attitude required to pursue problems, build a deep understanding of the issue and surrounding knowledge from first principles, and relentlessly implement changes/fixes until the problem is resolved.
Best operator you know: Max Lines (Advisor/Investor).
What is that person world class at? He is unwilling to accept an answer unless it is clear from a first-principles approach that it is infeasible

Amandine Aman (Endless, Le Wagon, Uber )

Trait: (Actionable) synthetization. The best operators can make sense of multiple problems and opportunities, consolidate a cohesive approach very quickly, and efficiently communicate it back to their team with meaning.
Best operator you know: Pierre-Dimitry Gore-Coty
What is that person world class at?: Ability to synthesize complicated information and detect anomalies

Matthieu Prost (Checkatrade, Uber, WeWork)

Trait:
Excellent attitude whatever the challenge, whatever their mood or personal circumstances. They give their best self and uplift people around them.
They are reliable. It sounds trivial but rare are the people who are truly delivering when they said they would and are consistently reliable for their team mates. A reliable team drives faster execution and increased trust with one another.
Search excellence one step at time. They build in an iterative fashion and improve their project/delivery slowly but consistently. It means they can iterate, understand what works and gets to a fantastic result at the end.
Best operator you know: Jenn Perrota (WeWork, CTO & CPO)

Jannick Malling (Public.com)

Trait: Clear framework for decisions. For instance, treat irreversible vs reversible decisions differently. Irreversible requires: default to analysis. Think deeply about the issue, spend the time educating yourself, turn every stone. You can’t over-analyze. Reversible decisions: default to action.
Best operator you know: Jessica Neal (TCV, Venture Partner)
What is that person world class at? Balance of thinking big and strategic long-term, while maintaining focus short-term, being ruthless in driving execution.

Bertram Thorslund (Founder Lenus)

Best operator you know: Jakob Jønck (Founder, KOATJI).
What is that person world class at? Two defining traits of Jakob are his ability to articulate as well as his adaptability.
Without the capacity to inspire and provide direction through communication, leadership is not scalable. Jakob might be one of the best I've met at articulating an abstract vision or a complex strategy clearly and executably.
Another key trait is that I've met few who adapt more quickly to a changing environment, even if it requires letting go of a cherished idea or challenging one's own assumptions.

Hans Waagø (VOI, Uber)

Trait: Take Action. The best operators always focus on ensuring mutual alignment on what the action and deadline for that action is coming out of any conversation
Best operator you know: Toussaint Wattinne (CEO, Upway)

Adrian Alfieri (Verbatim)

Trait: Hard work hands down. The best founders and operators I know really just put in the hours. Every day. Every weekend. Sure, there a bunch of hacks and shortcuts that are important to leverage. But ultimately it's just how many hours are you gonna put in? The best founders I work with know this.
Best operator you know: Rishabh Jain (Founder, Fermat Commerce).
What is that person world class at? 1 - He's never rushed and always calm, even when things are seemingly stressful. 2 - He's never too tied to a previous idea or strategy, if a new option presents itself that performs better, he's quickly change directions.

Lasse Kalkar (Liveflow, Revolut)

Trait: Do more with less. They are able to get a lot of stuff done with limited resources (are extremely resourceful)
Best operator you know: Kristoffer Lundberg (Insurtech Insights, CEO)
What is that person world class at? Day to day operations and sense of urgency

Philip Sørensen (Nova Credit, Revolut)

Trait: Have two gears that they master and constantly switch between:
Slow, hyper-analytical, question everything, think deep, don't settle for easy answers.
Fast, good enough is better than perfect, gets things done super fast, makes everyone else faster.
Best operator you know: Dan Westgarth (COO, Deel)

Rune Kvist (Momentum, Anthropic)

Trait: Letting fires burn: High-growth companies have a million problems. Being comfortable letting some of those fires burn - and communicating this - let's them focus much more precisely on the 1-3 challenges that really matter.
Best operator you know: Jessica Zwaan (COO, Talentful)
What is that person world class at? She things Org building = Product Building

Morten Bruun (Worksome, McKinsey)

Trait: The best operators are able to accelerate time. Operators need to have the instinct to always push teams to shorten their deadline and deliver at a higher pace. While no one deadline will make or break the company, the compounding effects of constantly pushing teams to execute 25% faster than what they planned is extremely powerful.
Best operator you know: Alexis Teixeira (CoS, Carta)

Dennis Levene (Schoolfundr, Jokr, Softbank)

Trait: Mission Drive. The best operators inspire their teams to build something beyond the individuals that make up the team, unified by a shared mission to create collective impact. Buy-in and alignment on a collective mission enables you to grow far beyond individual accolades or financial incentives
Best operator you know: Ralf Wenzel (CEO, Jokr)
What is that person world class at? Ralf has repeatedly demonstrated to see the future and build companies to manifest that future into reality. His ambition is big and bold, and helps drive him customers and teams to buy-in to that future, and achieve those goals faster that a normal person would think possible

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