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What we learned in studying the most effective founders

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Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders

#4
post #3

I do not understand "treat people like volunteers".

I think the idea is to treat employees you pay as if they where doing it for free. Say you give a boring task that’s not meaningful to a volunteer they’ll just up and leave as they won’t gain anything from it.

Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders

#5
Kind of a click bait title from Google, which is disappointing. This is really about characteristics of effective leaders, and has little to do with effective entrepreneurship, sales, hiring, engineering, etc. The points they suggest are also pretty generically applicable (and have been recommended for decades) to managers in general, so it’s not clear to me what’s different about founders specifically here.

Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders

#6
post #3

I do not understand "treat people like volunteers".

I read it as: "Dont pay them the market rate, squeeze them like lemons - and make them earn peanuts, for the grand vision of getting equity later".

Like in those sweatshops in third world countries. (Although sweatshops dont give equity)

So 60-70 hour weeks.

Does this work in Silicon Valley?

Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders

#7
post #6
post #3

I do not understand "treat people like volunteers".

I read it as: "Dont pay them the market rate, squeeze them like lemons - and make them earn peanuts, for the grand vision of getting equity later". Like in those sweatshops in third world countries. (Although sweatshops dont give equity) So 60-70 hour weeks. Does this work in Silicon Valley?

This is a pretty negative take. Have you done work out of a sense of purpose rather than for just a salary?

It's about treating people like they have personal interest in the mission of the organization and working towards a common purpose. And not to treat them like your personal wage servants.

Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders

#8
While there is some decent leadership advice in this article, I can't help but to wonder: all these articles seem to focus on personal leadership qualities, does anyone recommend good articles that focus on other things like socioeconomic status, college/degree level, age, etc? It seems intuitive that @$$hole founders fail, but all things considered equal I intuition also tells me these other factors are equality if not more impactful.

Edit: Couple minor typos.

Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders

#10
post #6
post #3

I do not understand "treat people like volunteers".

I read it as: "Dont pay them the market rate, squeeze them like lemons - and make them earn peanuts, for the grand vision of getting equity later". Like in those sweatshops in third world countries. (Although sweatshops dont give equity) So 60-70 hour weeks. Does this work in Silicon Valley?

>I read it as: "Dont pay them the market rate, squeeze them like lemons - and make them earn peanuts, for the grand vision of getting equity later".

In what context are volunteers treated like that?

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