Robert Scoble's "Cat's In The Cradle" moment"

I'll get to that in a second, but first:

Today video blogger and friend

Significantly distilled, his reasons are that he doesn't feel natural as a hands-on executive, and would rather concentrate on what he loves doing. That'd be creating great, entertaining, thought-provoking content, as well as making time to hang with his son.

Thing is, when you start a company, there are those nit (my term) "sign the purchase order for the paper clips" stuff you have to deal with. Not only that, but hire people, makesure they are trained, be available for newbie questions, etc.

In more cases than not, after systems are in place can you, the founder, legitimately apply for VC money to pay a hands-on CEO what he or she may be worth.

But see, FastCompany.tv is already set up for this.

As if Robert could possibly need even more of an imperative to follow this path..well I will let him say it.

Doing a business is stressful on everyone involved. Om Malik’s heart attack had an impact on me. So did Marc Orchant’s death. Life is too short and if that means I leave a few million on the table because I gave up equity in my own thing, so be it. I’m happiest when behind a camera talking with someone like Doug Engelbart or taking Patrick, my son, to MacWorld. Anything other than that I’m going to outsource, ala “the Four Hour Workweek.”

One final thought on this whole concept,but especially the part of Robert taking his son to MacWorld. Just flashed on another lesson learned from an earlier time, but also set in San Francisco.

I remember the verse in the song "Cat's In The Cradle," when the late Harry Chapin sang:

My son turned ten just the other day He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play" "Can you teach me to throw?" I said, "Not today, I got a lot to do" He said, "That's ok" And he walked away but his smile never dimmed And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah" "You know I'm gonna be like him"

Kudos to you, Robert, for not wanting to be that type of dad.