I’d soon learn that I had been totally wrong in my assessment of him. He was an amiable, funny guy; his energy and optimism were infectious; and, crucially, he knew what he didn’t know. This is a rare trait in a boss. It’s easy to imagine another person in Dennis’s shoes overcompensating for the fact that he’d never worked at a network by exuding a kind of fake authority or knowledge, but that wasn’t how Dennis was wired.