Most leaders think their job is complicated. It’s not. I tend to break it down into three things: get people working together, get them working on the right things, and improve the work over time. The problem is that second one. Getting people focused on the right things sounds simple, but in practice, it’s where most teams fall apart.
In this episode, I sit down with Matt Gialich, CEO of AstroForge, to talk about what that actually looks like inside a company trying to do something insanely hard, mining asteroids in deep space. We get into how he unexpectedly became CEO, why the job is less about vision and more about doing whatever needs to get done, and how easy it is for teams to drift even when everyone is talented and working hard.
A big theme throughout this conversation is focus vs overengineering. Engineers naturally want to go beyond the requirement, make things stronger, better, more robust. But that almost always comes at the cost of speed. And in environments like space or startups, speed is not optional, it is the advantage. Learning faster, iterating faster, and actually shipping matters more than building something “perfect.”
We also talk about fear, how it shows up in teams, how it leads to overthinking and unnecessary work, and why staying close to the actual mission is the only real way to fight it. No frameworks, no hacks. Just being in the room, talking to people, and constantly reinforcing what actually matters.
If you are leading a team, especially in a fast moving or technical environment, this is really a conversation about what the job actually is and what it is not.
Episode Highlights
00:00 What it actually means to be a CEO
03:40 AstroForge Didn’t Start in Space, It Started as a Submarine Company
07:54 Building Somebody Else’s Company15:30 The “overengineering problem” in technical teams
13:42 Monthly Calendar Audit for Cutting Out Noise
18:49 Why Small Teams Overbuild Instead of Staying Focused
23:12 Speed, Fear, and Why Iteration Beats Perfection
27:28 Flight Cadence, Failure, and Why Speed Beats Perfection in Space
31:45 Execution, Auditing Reality, and the First Deep Space Missions
Key Takeaways
- A CEO’s job is not abstract vision, it is execution on whatever increases enterprise value
- Small teams don’t fail from lack of talent, they fail from lack of focus
- Engineers naturally optimize beyond requirements, but that often slows down learning and iteration
- Speed is not just execution, it is a way to reduce risk over time
- Fear inside teams often shows up as overthinking or overbuilding
- The real job of leadership is constantly reinforcing what matters and removing noise
- You do not scale alignment with frameworks, you scale it with repetition and presence
- Most organizational problems are actually prioritization problems in disguise
Links & Resources
Matt Gialich
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-gialich
AstroForge
Website:https://www.astroforge.com/about-us
Matt Gjertsen
Website:https://www.bettereverydaystudios.com/
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewgjertsen/
YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@BetterEveryDayStudios
