2017-04-08 This Man Makes Founders Cry

This Man Makes Founders Cry

Jerry/ˈdʒɛri/Colonna helps CEOs make money by making peace with their demons./'di:mən/

By Jessi Hempel

It’s two o’clock on a Sunday morning, and I’m standing outside a Lisbon/'lizbən/bar/bɑr/with a pack/pæk/of techies/ˈtɛki/gathered/'gaðəd/for the annual/'ænjuəl/Founders conference. The air smells like salt/sɔlt/and cigarettes/'sɪɡərɛt/. Inside, someone is passing around shots. Two guys are trying to play pool, but the room is too crowded, packed person-to-person with CEOs, investors, and bankers talking shop. Outside, the breeze/briz/on my face is a relief/rɪ'lif/. The guy next to me is maybe 37 years old, with a reddish/'rɛdɪʃ/-blond/blɑnd/goatee/ɡo'ti/, and he’s telling me about his enterprise/'ɛntɚ'praɪz/software company, FullContact, which, he says, is based in Boulder /'boldɚ/.

I’m writing about a man from Boulder, so I ask him: “Do you happen to know Jerry Colonna?”

“Jerry?” he responds. “That guy saved my life.”

He tells me his name is Bart/bɑ:t/Lorang, and when he went to see Colonna four years ago, his company was faltering/'fɔ:ltəriŋ/and his wife was unhappy with him. Colonna coached him for two years. Today, he says, his company is profitable/'prɑfɪtəbl/, and his marriage/'mærɪdʒ/is strong.

Over the last few months, Lorang’s story has begun to sound familiar/fə'mɪljɚ/to me. Among tech’s founders and CEOs, Colonna’s name carries a certain weight. “When I first started speaking to Jerry, I was a new CEO. Occasionally/o'keʒənəli/, people would sheepishly/ˈʃipɪʃlɪ/say, ‘Do you know Jerry Colonna?’”says Etsy CEO Chad Dickerson. “There was this moment where you admitted to each other that you were working with him. It’s not an official thing, but there is this almost secret society of people who’ve been coached by Jerry.”

Many of the most successful tech founders have relied on coaches. A small handful of them have risen to celebrity status for coaching some of the valley’s more iconic/aɪ'kɑnɪk/figures. The most famous was former Intuit/ɪn'tʊɪt/CEO Bill Campbell, who passed away last year. Campbell worked with Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Marc/mɑrk/Andreessen, among many others. More than one person has compared Colonna to Campbell/ˈkæmbəl/. “Campbell had a testosterone/tɛ'stɑstəron/-infused/ɪn'fjuz/Silicon/'sɪlɪkən/Valley /'væli/kind of model,” says investor Fred Wilson. “Jerry’s model is more Buddhism/'bʊdɪzəm/and less football.”