I do not understand "treat people like volunteers".
As in "like volunteers, not like slaves".
What we learned in studying the most effective founders
11–20 of 87 posts
Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders
#12While 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…
There were some articles over the last few years about successful founders skewing older. Looks like the average age for billion dollar companies is 34 but I remember seeing over 40 for some thresholds.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/05/27/super-founders-median-ag...
Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders
#13I 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.
I read it this way as well. That said, sometimes boring work needs to be done too. Who does it in this framework?
Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders
#14Self help pablum for aspiring founders. I'll just highlight a couple of the ridiculous things in there. "Minimize unnecessary micromanagement". There's just a ton in there. First, micromanagement already has a negative connotation so recommending to minimize it rather than eliminate it is just an obnoxious hedge. Then it doubles down on recommending minimizing only "unnecessary" micromanagement. You just go right ahead micromanaging those losers who deserve to be micromanaged. How else are you going to drive out the undesirables?
"Invite disagreement". All hedge. "some studies have shown", "in tern it could mean more innovative and inclusive products". Not because you want to show respect for the opinions of others or that you listen to what people have to say but because it could lead to more innovative and inclusive products ie. "I don't really care what you have to say other than how it hits my bottom line but go on talking. I'll let you know if I think you say something worthwhile"
"Keep pace with expertise" This was nice until you get to the bottom of the actual report and find out that Josh has an undergraduate degree in Biology and an MBA. I'm not sure how that shows any expertise in what is being written about but please go on nor how that could possibly qualify you as Chief of Staff at Google Research but there it is.
I think what's more interesting about stuff like this is not what they're saying but what they're selling. I can only guess that the real research Google did was that they needed more startups to get started using their products and that they would continue to use and expand their use of Google services as they grow.
Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders
#15My first thought on seeing the title was "ooh, which founders of the United States were most effective? That sounds interesting" >_<
Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders
#16I do not understand "treat people like volunteers".
pay your employees peanuts
Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
my sense of purpose is towards my family, co-religionists, and god. I'm not delusional enough to wake up at 6AM and come to office at 8AM for anything other than money.
Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If you're the owner/founder of a startup and have employees, there will be little common purpose at a fundamental level. Your priority is making the company as successful as possible at least reasonable cost, theirs is usually extracting as much value from their job for themselves at least effort. This doesn't apply in all companies absolutely but most of the time talk of "we're a family" or "team effort!" is PR drivel, that more often than not goes out the window in a hurry when things get down to the squeeze. If the owner/founder didn't want to have the priority I mentioned above, they could have started a sincere nonprofit, not a money making investment venture. Likewise for staff.
Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders
#19> What we learned in studying the most effective founders
Probably the meaning of survivorship bias.
Re: What we learned in studying the most effective founders
#20Is it really 'learning' if there's literally nothing new uncovered? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯