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Four ways in

The Ledger is organised by the decision you are about to make, not by date. Find yours.

You just got the job

86% of new CEOs in 2025 were doing it for the first time. These are the ones about the first year in the chair.

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My board and I disagreed about the number, and I was the one who was wrong

Fourteen months into her first CEO job, hired not founded, she defended a 40% growth plan to a board that wanted 22%. She won the argument in March and missed the number in November. What she would do differently is not what you would expect.

The Promoted Specimen A 180-person PE-backed services firm 6 min
- 180 headcount
- 40% growth plan i defended
- 22% growth the board proposed

You are about to cut

The people decisions: layoffs, executives, co-founders. The ones CEOs rank hardest and discuss least.

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I laid off 14 of 61 people on a Tuesday

Twenty-three days from knowing to doing. Fourteen people out of sixty-one, $1.9M of annual cost removed, and a sales team that never trusted the forecast again. The bootstrapped CEO who made the call walks through every step of it.

The Bootstrapper Specimen A 35-person e-commerce brand 7 min
- 61 headcount before
- 14 people affected
- $1.9M annual cost removed

The number has to change

Pricing, money raised or refused, and the arithmetic that had already finished before you accepted it.

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I tripled the price and lost sixty per cent of my customers

A solo founder in Bengaluru raised prices from $29 to $89, lost 61% of accounts in eleven weeks, and ended the year with 2.1x the revenue and four fewer support staff. The part she got wrong was not the price.

The Solo Founder Specimen A 12-person software company 6 min
- $29 old price (per seat / month)
- $89 new price (per seat / month)
- 1,240 accounts before

It is costing you personally

Health, family, the parts that do not go in the board pack.

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No story of this kind yet. Yours would be the first.