Types of personalities in a company

Listened to a great Podcast by Bill Gross @ Stanford university
After starting about 75 companies in 15 years (likes of Picassa, CitySearch, etc..) he had some great insight into types of people.

I found his definition of personalities a lot practical than various others I've come across by others.

I'll try to convey it here for people who don't want to listen to the whole 110 mins. (I highly highly recommend it)

Every person in the company is a blend of the 4 given below, finding the right balance is crucial and any one trait taken too far is detrimental :

Types

• Entrepreneur
• Producer
• Administrator
• Integrator

Quick description

• Entrepreneur : The innovator. Simple enough.

• Producer : The person who actually builds things. It might be a website, a tool, whatever, but this person is the one who actually believes in hands on building stuff. Not just talk.

• Administrator : The bureaucrat. He wants to put processes in place. Its a good thing ! This person understands  that when things really scale they can't survive if there isn't a process in place.

• Integrator : He is a more people person ( read balanced). He knows the Producers mostly want to get things done and the Administrator is always trying to put processes in place that slow him down, and all this while the Entrepreneur is building things in air and wants it to be practically embodied. The Integrator puts everyone in a room, brings the best out of each, draws agreement and makes sure no one kills each other 8-) According to Bill this is one of the very important qualities of a CEO.

Great encouraging talk. Thanks Stanford.