Funny how there isn't any desire to go Founder mode on the less exciting parts of the business. HR, compliance, facilities...
If you were good at product but bad at business hire a business person and accept that CEO is a different skill set. Don't wrap it up in some egotistic 'once more unto the breach' nonsense.
Founders will be managing (perhaps future) senior executives, not junior managers. Senior execs are given a lot of leeway (budgets, staff, goal setting) and will have massive impact on the “shape” of the business overall. As such they are willful people, and not really “micromanagable”. These are absolutely the kind of people you need in these positions.
With this willfulness comes the challenge of “herding the cats” to an achieve an ultra-focused vision. This is what requires “founder mode”.
No talented founder will resort to typical junior manager mircromanagement antics as it would drive the company into the ground. Instead, they seem to have some kind of “reality distortion field” ability, what we’re calling “founder mode” here. The challenge is discovering the parts and pieces that make up “founder mode”… we know it exists but don’t really understand it.
>Reality distortion field
Read: Weaponized Information Asymmetry and Perception Management
It relies on being viewed as larger than life, and exploiting the ignorance or inability of others to ask the right questions. When asked the right questions, it requires a willingness to lie one's ass off.
It isn't some magical mystical thing. It's just the willingness to meat grinder everything including imposed obligations and staff in the name of doing what it is you want to do.
It isn't sexy though when you call a spade a spade. So no one does. Having been the exec/manager to walk away from people/businesses after calling them out on their behavior, it is no mystery.
> we know it exists but don’t really understand it.
We only know that some people believe it to exist, wherever it actually does is an entirely different matter.
And if it exists, wherever it's a positive of a negative influence is another layer of uncertainty, that almost certainly entirely depends on the other people that they're working together with.
> a rebranding for micromanaging, top-down leaders
And why is that a problem? I understand the connotation of "micromanaging". It's just that in the context of this discussion, it really depends on what we mean by "micromanaging". The CEO of Scale AI has a better interpretation: micromanaging is just managing. So, micromanaging will be bad if such managing is counter productive, otherwise it is good. For positive examples, I'd say Steve Job's "micromanaging" of product details is amazing (he wants to to have elegance inside a computer case. How micromanaging is that!). Jeff Bezos' micromanaging on company culture is also amazing - he even dictates on how every team should conduct meetings and he forces how every team manages service access. How micromanaging is that!
On a personal level, I'd always crave for a leader who can frequently and correctly tell me how wrong I am or how much better I can do things. That'll be a hell of a learning experience.
"Moreover, even for those who would like to rightfully consider Airbnb results positive, there’s a huge price on culture companies managed this way have to pay. We can get a glimpse from a few Glassdoor reviews I found, all subsequent to Chesky’s new approach..."
Glassdoor reviews are a poor measure of a company's culture.
"“founder mode” paradigm, a valid alternative to “skillful liars”
"I guess anyone can see how a spreadsheet with yellow, red and green statuses is nothing groundbreaking really!"
"Graham goes as far as positioning this as an entirely new paradigm, literally believing he's discovered something that nobody knew existed before."
"this approach is well known to business schools as poor, dysfunctional management, and the alternative to that is of course good management."
I could keep going. I am happy to read arguments for/against Founder Mode, but I want to read an actual argument, not ad hominem dressed in smarty pants.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says"
As a founder as well, in the current global economy, I think the main driver for ‘founder mode’ is to improve the ROI of the product team by forcing the company to focus on fewer features (and lay off a part of the workforce)
Readit News
If you were good at product but bad at business hire a business person and accept that CEO is a different skill set. Don't wrap it up in some egotistic 'once more unto the breach' nonsense.
1. Many companies have too many layers of management, with too much abstraction from the actual product, which kills drive and focus.
2. Micromanagement and disempowerment of employees is bad management and ultimately harmful.
In practice these two facts often exist in tension, but they are not inherently contradictory, and it's possible to thread the needle.
With this willfulness comes the challenge of “herding the cats” to an achieve an ultra-focused vision. This is what requires “founder mode”.
No talented founder will resort to typical junior manager mircromanagement antics as it would drive the company into the ground. Instead, they seem to have some kind of “reality distortion field” ability, what we’re calling “founder mode” here. The challenge is discovering the parts and pieces that make up “founder mode”… we know it exists but don’t really understand it.
It relies on being viewed as larger than life, and exploiting the ignorance or inability of others to ask the right questions. When asked the right questions, it requires a willingness to lie one's ass off.
It isn't some magical mystical thing. It's just the willingness to meat grinder everything including imposed obligations and staff in the name of doing what it is you want to do.
It isn't sexy though when you call a spade a spade. So no one does. Having been the exec/manager to walk away from people/businesses after calling them out on their behavior, it is no mystery.
We only know that some people believe it to exist, wherever it actually does is an entirely different matter.
And if it exists, wherever it's a positive of a negative influence is another layer of uncertainty, that almost certainly entirely depends on the other people that they're working together with.
And why is that a problem? I understand the connotation of "micromanaging". It's just that in the context of this discussion, it really depends on what we mean by "micromanaging". The CEO of Scale AI has a better interpretation: micromanaging is just managing. So, micromanaging will be bad if such managing is counter productive, otherwise it is good. For positive examples, I'd say Steve Job's "micromanaging" of product details is amazing (he wants to to have elegance inside a computer case. How micromanaging is that!). Jeff Bezos' micromanaging on company culture is also amazing - he even dictates on how every team should conduct meetings and he forces how every team manages service access. How micromanaging is that!
On a personal level, I'd always crave for a leader who can frequently and correctly tell me how wrong I am or how much better I can do things. That'll be a hell of a learning experience.
Glassdoor reviews are a poor measure of a company's culture.
"“founder mode” paradigm, a valid alternative to “skillful liars”
"I guess anyone can see how a spreadsheet with yellow, red and green statuses is nothing groundbreaking really!"
"Graham goes as far as positioning this as an entirely new paradigm, literally believing he's discovered something that nobody knew existed before."
"this approach is well known to business schools as poor, dysfunctional management, and the alternative to that is of course good management."
I could keep going. I am happy to read arguments for/against Founder Mode, but I want to read an actual argument, not ad hominem dressed in smarty pants.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says"
It’s a cyclical thing that ends up in disaster about 4-8 years down the road.