Swedish vibe-coding unicorn Lovable has doubled its annual recurring revenue (ARR) to $200 million in just four months, co-founder and CEO Anton Osika said onstage at the Slush 2025 technology conference in Helsinki, Finland. Osika credited the AI-assisted coding software maker's decision not to move to Silicon Valley as the main reason for its success thus far. Osika said Lovable decided to stay in Europe despite getting a lot of early advice that the company would only be successful if it left the region and relocated to the U.S. 'It was tempting, but I really resisted that,' Osika said. 'I [can] sit here now and say, 'Look, guys, you can build a global AI company from this country.' There is more available talent if you have a strong mission, and you have a lot of urgency coming together as a group and working.' 'We just see all of these people in the community driving forward,' Osika said. 'They've been active voices on Discord for, I think, the last 1,000 hours, debating some kind of WordPress operation. That was powering what we're doing.'...
Leadership theory suggests CEOs should focus on high-level issues such as strategy and resource allocation. These authors challenge this conventional wisdom by spotlighting CEOs who dive deep into day-to-day execution rather than hovering at the strategic level. By exploring best practices at Amazon, Danaher, RELX, and Toyota, they argue that top-performing companies thrive because of leaders who actively shape how work gets done. These CEOs'Jeff Bezos, Larry Culp, Erik Engstrom, and Eiji Toyoda'have rejected the hands-off model in favor of modeling behaviors and teaching frontline teams. Their approach isn't micromanagement; it's a disciplined, system-building style that fosters autonomy, clarity, and continuous improvement. The authors distill five principles that define this leadership: obsessing over customer-value metrics, designing work processes, making decisions through experimentation, teaching tool kits, and embedding a culture of relentless improvement. This article illustrates how the CEO role can be redefined in a way that makes depth, presence, and operational fluency become sources of enduring competitive advantage....
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New research based on a survey of board directors, as well as in-depth interviews with directors, investors, and executive search consultants, reveals 10 pitfalls in CEO succession, from a hesitant CEO to mismanaged transitions to a superficial assessment of external talent. The research also revealed that the best successions have one thing in common: a trusted and engaged chief human resources officer (CHRO), who can bring structure, objectivity, and clarity to the process....
