President, Chief Executive Officer & Director, Dixie
Search every verified Art Zeile interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a 2012 interview on *The Leadership Lattice*, Art Zeile discussed his approach to entrepreneurship and leadership at Hosting.com. He described sales as "absolutely paramount" for early-stage companies, noting that entrepreneurs must serve as the "chief salesperson" and that prospects need to believe in them due to the risk involved. Zeile also emphasized the importance of risk tolerance and decision-making under duress, stating that a $50,000 mistake at a small company could affect payroll or survival, whereas the same error would be minor for a larger firm. Zeile characterized himself as the "chief Talent officer" and said his responsibility is to surround himself with people more talented than himself at every level. He and his business partner, Joel Daly, aim to create 50 future CEOs and COOs by constantly adding responsibility to their management team. Zeile described their hiring philosophy, "top grading," which involves a detailed review of a candidate's career progression, performance, and scope of responsibilities. He attributed employee loyalty to shared values and teamwork, noting that he and Daly have shared an office for 19 years to visibly demonstrate that the company exists because of collaboration. Zeile said he focuses on sales, marketing, and finances, while Daly handles operations and engineering.
“Sales is absolutely paramount and you have to really truly appreciate the function and appreciate what it means to the company at that stage.”
“If you make a $50,000 decision as a small company and it's a bad decision in terms of the impact of the company, that could affect your payroll, it could affect your ability to survive.”
“I view myself as the chief Talent officer for the company and the real responsibility there is to ensure that I'm surrounded by people that are much more talented than myself at every single level.”
“Our ultimate goal is to create 50 CEOs and COOs like ourselves over the course of our career; we want those people to be so successful that they go out and manage their own companies once they're done with their experience at hosting.com.”
“We subscribe to a philosophy called top grading, which involves getting detailed about every step in a person's career, their responsibilities, performance, and how they increased the scope of their responsibilities over time.”
“People want to work for you primarily because they believe in your values; they want to work with a team that they can trust and that they believe is engaged in a mission that they believe in.”
“Joel and I have shared an office for the last 19 years because we truly believe that people should know this company exists because of teamwork.”
“I spend most of my time focused on sales, marketing, and finances; Joel spends most of his time focused on operations and engineering, and we visibly show people every single day that it is important that all these functions work together very closely.”
The Leadership Lattice is an interview series conducted by Ann Spoor CEO & Founder of Executive Lattice. The series focuses on ...
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