Komby in 14 Steps — Step 12: CEO, a thumb to appearances

People often think a chorus says everything at face value, but this one doesn't: I am not a DJ. I am a CEO is a joke, a thumb to appearances, a statement of faith — not an ID badge to stick on your chest. The message stays simple and stubborn — you can be what you want if you have faith, because appearances confirm nothing, and because a man people still think is stuck in a booth can, in reality, run an international company from London without anyone seeing it coming. My name is Alexandre Auger; I was a DJ — radio, decks, electronic, house, label — that first world I still call "tech," the one of tempo and rooms, the one I told elsewhere on France Je Te Quitte, how I became a radio host, why I created Electromix Records, what I saw of Believe's early days. Today I run Komby — Komby Dot IO, a combination of applications — with international ambition; I'm French by birth and British by naturalisation, I live in London, I built without investors, and this path lives in the body, not on a LinkedIn profile.

The trial: what people think they see

The CEO's job is often to carry what nobody sees — the nights, the decisions, the team, the dashboard, the unsaid — and for a long time, those who still knew me saw a DJ, the one at the decks, the sets, the nights where the crowd decides before you. When I shifted toward Komby, the gap between what people believed and what I was becoming widened: people readily imagine the leader as a boring paper-pusher, or, in software tech, as a hoodied developer in front of a screen, just as they imagine the DJ stuck forever in a booth, and the chorus mocks those boxes because I was one and became the other, faith holding the bridge between the two without a fundraise to validate me — only the path, from Paris kitchens in adolescence to the global wire. Appearances confirm nothing: a man behind decks can build an international company, a CEO can still compose a quasi-autobiographical album, a chorus can be a joke and a truth at once, and me, I'm the one who left the booth for the dashboard without denying where I came from.

From the booth to the dashboard

I remember the first time someone introduced me as "the Komby guy" in a context where they still expected me behind a mix — that moment when you feel the gaze doesn't follow fast enough the real trajectory, when they ask you for a set while you just spent the night on a business model, a client in trouble, a team decision. It wasn't betrayal, it was proof that boxes last longer than lives: yesterday's DJ stayed visible, today's CEO stayed invisible, and in between, me, with two "techs" in the body — house and electronic on one side, code on the other — and faith solid enough not to believe appearances. I built Komby without investors, client by client, night by night, from London, with that international ambition that looks like nothing people expect from a former night-life guy: no deck announcing a raise, no slide replacing lived experience, only a company moving forward while the outside still hesitates on the label. Turning off the decks and opening the dashboard isn't a technical instruction to take literally; it's the symbol of the passage — from the stage people think they know to the company you actually run — and the takeover I talk about here isn't taking over a club for one night, it's Komby's international ambition, held without lowering your guard. A CEO can still compose a quasi-autobiographical album because music remains where lived experience translates when professional words aren't enough anymore, and CEO was born from that lived gap: DJ yesterday, leader today, two worlds in the same body, a joke that tells the truth differently than LinkedIn.

Why I had to release this track

Because the lived experience was already there — DJ yesterday, CEO today, two "techs" in the body, house and electronic on one side, code on the other, and faith solid enough not to believe appearances — and composing was translating that thumb to appearances into sound, not inventing a war, not sticking an org chart on a beat. You sing, you smile, then you understand — or you search — and me, I'm the one who left the booth for the dashboard without denying where I came from: the album stays, music stays, the joke too. Sharing this track was offering that faith to those who think they're stuck in a box: you can want something else, you can become something else, if you have faith — and if you refuse to let other people's gaze decide who you are. I didn't write CEO to explain my CV or to answer a question nobody should ask as if a title were enough; I wrote it because I needed to say, in sound, that appearances lie, that the path lives in the body, and that a chorus can be both provocation and promise.

Freeing the mind

On the journal, Why Francejetequitte.com? carries the same voice; the musical past is already documented, and here, it's the thumb to the present. Komby means combination, and behind the image others still stick on me, there's a real company — restaurants, retail, offices, nightclubs, service sector — that I run with the same combat standard as behind the decks. The album translates lived experience; it doesn't precede it, and in the background, this trial reminds us that Make It Easy isn't only for those who see us as expected: it's for those who build despite the gaze, despite the box, despite the "you're still the DJ" thrown at you when you just closed an international contract.

CEO. Twelfth combat mark. The track you listen to when they pigeonhole you too fast — and you answer with a joke that opens an ambition larger than the gaze placed on you.

I am not a DJ. I am a CEO.

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Alexandre Auger — CEO of Komby

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