Last week, I told you about Tucker Max firing himself as CEO of Scribe Media. He handed the keys to JeVon McCormick—a seasoned CEO who'd scaled companies before.

Everything turned around almost immediately.

For a while.

This is the rest of that story, the one you haven’t heard yet.

Here's a trap I've watched catch more CEOs than I can count:

They have a record year. The numbers are up. The team is firing. And somewhere in the back of their mind, a dangerous assumption takes root:

This is the new baseline.

They stop asking whether the conditions that created the growth are still in play. They stop wondering if the market shifted, if the tailwind was temporary, if the team that got them here can get them there.

They just expect to repeat—or beat—last year. Because it was possible once.

But past performance doesn't guarantee future results. Every investor knows this. Most CEOs forget it the moment their revenue hockey-sticks.

Scribe was a textbook case.

2017, 2018, 2019—steady growth, great culture, happy clients. Market leader. Then the pandemic hit. Most companies panicked.

We pivoted, fast.

My team—marketing—captured the demand from thousands of professionals suddenly trapped at home with time to finally write their book. New products launched. We went hard.

2020 was our best year ever. 2021 was even better. $25 million in top-line. Healthy margins.

We weren't just hitting numbers. We won every culture award in Austin. "Best Places to Work" in Texas and across the USA. And here's the thing—it wasn't bullshit. You actually liked showing up to the office because you actually liked the people. That's rare. Genuinely rare.

If you wanted a case study on scaling a founder-led company through a crisis—Scribe would've been it.

Then 2022 happened.

The company wasn't dying because revenue cratered. Wasn't dying because the product went to shit. Wasn't dying because the market disappeared.

It was dying because ego replaced data.

We dropped from $25M to $21M. Not great, but survivable. Companies hit temporary ceilings all the time—especially when the year before was turbocharged by a global pandemic that trapped entrepreneurs at home with nothing to do but finally write their book.

But JeVon didn't see a temporary ceiling. He saw failure to execute. He was spending based on goals he was convinced we could still hit, not reality. Projections, not actuals.

The leadership team saw it. We presented data. We built models. We scenario-planned layoffs. We pitched new products that could spin up revenue in weeks.

His response?

"Stay the course. Things will come around."

I was CMO. Helped take this company from $3M to $25M. And suddenly I was being asked to do the impossible.

"Keep building the team."

"Cut all unnecessary costs."

"Drive more revenue."

Pick 2. You can't have all three with no budget. But JeVon wanted all 3.

Instead—and this still makes me want to throw my laptop—he decided to increase affiliate commissions. We had data showing affiliates weren't motivated by higher payouts. We were already paying up to $10K per referral. It just raised our CAC and reduced our margins. Zero added benefit.

But he knew better. (He didn't.)

I pushed back. The whole leadership team pushed back. We weren't whispering in hallways—we were in rooms with spreadsheets, showing him exactly what was going to happen.

His response? "Stay the course."

We came to him with a clear plan:

Light layoff. Overhead reduction. A new product we could launch in 3 weeks—there was obvious market demand, we'd validated it, we knew it would sell. Could've added a few million that same year, mostly profit.

This wasn't desperation. This was good operating. Companies course-correct all the time. That's how you survive.

JeVon said no.

Stay the course.

When your leadership team brings you data, brings you solutions, brings you a path forward—and you choose ego instead?

That's the moment the company starts dying. Everything after that is just the corpse catching up.

I have a distinct memory from my very last day at Scribe. Same day I was packing up to start working with Codie Sanchez at Contrarian Thinking.

JeVon popped his head into my office. "Hey, you know that acquisition offer we have from Scribd?" (That's S-C-R-I-B-D, a completely different company.) "I'm gonna blow it up. We're not gonna sell. We're gonna turn this bitch around."

I remember thinking: Is this guy fucking insane?

Coincidentally, it was also the first full day in the new expanded office. Super nice. Huge. JeVon had spent $250,000 on a podcast and audiobook recording room in the center of it with a Rolls-Royce starlight headliner.

I wish I was kidding.

I was so thankful that it was my last day.

You've probably read about what came after. Tucker wrote about it publicly. There are lawsuits. It's all on the record.

The year after I left, revenue dropped even more. JeVon's response? He laid off the entire marketing team.

All of our revenue was inbound. Every dollar came through marketing. (You can guess how that went.)

Then the lies started. He told Tucker and Zach the company was worth $65M. Then $47M offers were "on the table." Then $35M. Then a Saudi prince was interested.

(No, seriously. A Saudi prince.)

All lies.

He took investments without telling the co-founders. Took loans from employees. Photoshopped financial statements—literally changed losses to profits in the PDF. Used company money for Disney trips and Louis Vuitton bags while missing payroll.

In May 2023, 86 employees were laid off via Zoom along with 100’s of freelancers.

The company collapsed. Authors' books were lost. More people sued. Lives upended.

Enduring Ventures acquired what was left for pennies on the dollar. Their reason for buying? The brand. The reputation we'd built up since 2014. Other than that, the company was a ghost.

Nearly a decade of strong financials. A loved, trusted brand. Thousands of happy clients. Poof—up in smoke.

Here's what drives me crazy: everyone focuses on the fraud.

The fraud was bad. Obviously. But the fraud was just the cover-up.

The company was already dead before the first lie was told.

It died the moment ego replaced data. The moment "stay the course" became the answer to every problem. The moment a CEO decided he knew better than the team that helped build the thing.

By the time JeVon started lying to investors, he was just trying to hide a corpse.

I've seen this more than once. A leader hits a ceiling they don't want to acknowledge. The team brings data. The team brings solutions. And the leader chooses ego over evidence.

"Stay the course" sounds like confidence. It feels like leadership. But when the numbers don't support it—when the conditions that created your best year have changed—it's just denial with a better PR strategy.

Ego replacing data is the first sign of collapse.

If your team has stopped pushing back, it's not because they agree with you. It's because they've given up.

That silence? That's the sound of a company dying.

It's almost January. Which means you've probably just set goals for 2026.

Ask yourself: Where did those numbers come from?

Are they based on what's actually possible in this market, with this team, in this economy? Or are they based on what you did last year—plus 20% because growth is supposed to go up?

If your 2025 was a record year, be careful. The conditions that created it may not still be in play.

And if your leadership team has concerns about the plan, listen. Really listen. Not "hear them out and then do what you were going to do anyway" listen. Actually listen.

Because "stay the course" feels like confidence in January. By October, it's just denial you haven't admitted yet.

What's one assumption in your 2026 plan that you haven't pressure-tested with your team?

The next time someone tells you they have a "revenue problem" or a "marketing problem" or an "ops problem"—they're wrong. I'll show you what's actually broken.

Hit reply and let me know. This email list is still small (this is issue #2), so reply while I still can read and respond to every email.

—Chris Piper