People assume the hardest part of hosting CXOTalk is booking the guests. It is not. The hardest part is creating a space where a CEO who is trained to stay on message forgets, for a moment, to stay on message.

You do not get there with clever questions. You get there by being genuinely prepared, genuinely curious, and completely uninterested in a gotcha.

The conditions for a real answer

I do not sell or pitch, and my guests know it. The audience is intelligent and asks questions live, which raises the stakes in the best way. When a leader can tell that the room actually understands their world, they stop performing and start thinking out loud. That is the moment worth waiting for.