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Founder Mode

paulgraham.com

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Re: Founder Mode

#181

Post by paulsutter »

neom wrote: post #130

This is conventional wisdom. https://hbr.org/2004/01/managers-and-leaders-are-they-differ... https://hbr.org/2016/06/do-managers-and-leaders-really-do-di... https://hbr.org/2022/09/the-best-managers-are-leaders-and-vi... Almost every HBR "Must Read" series on enterprise management says the same thing as this blog post. The business world has been talking about this stuff since the 90s.

The article says exactly the opposite. The central point is that a founder runs a company differently from a “professional manager”

> There are as far as I know no books specifically about founder mode. Business schools don't know it exists.

> …what they were being told was how to run a company you hadn't founded — how to run a company if you're merely a professional manager. But this m.o. is so much less effective that to founders it feels broken. There are things founders can do that managers can't, and not doing them feels wrong to founders, because it is.

Re: Founder Mode

#182

Post by btbuildem »

gizmo wrote: post #9

The big thing missing from pg’s essay is how the professional managerial class has this big filter where only those who are willing to jump through hoops for 20 years get to the c-suite. In businesses of any size it’s just not possible to get promoted straight up the ranks in your 20s no matter how good you are. Seniority trumps ability. Founders are excluded from this filter process and to nobody’s surprise founders…

> it’s just not possible to get promoted straight up the ranks in your 20s no matter how good you are. Seniority trumps ability.

Experience. Experience and wisdom is what trumps the exuberant overconfidence of an ignorant youth.

Re: Founder Mode

#183

Post by ivoras »

Oh, that's easy: "founder mode" means the founder is hyperfocused (or in the oldspeak, obsessed) on his work (with his company) and optimizes (micromanages) everything. We know that already. Perfection demands micromanagement. Steve Jobs was actually doing that - reaching down the ranks and directly helping (molesting) people doing some piece of a larger product he particularly cared about.

It also often causes (or is caused by) eccentric behavior (or mental issues) - but it's been done since forever, and when it's successful, we call it "visionary." When it's not, we call it "toxic."

Re: Founder Mode

#184

Post by tonyarkles »

sethammons wrote: post #37
tkiolp4 wrote: post #17

> VP of marketing? Nope, professional money extractor. VP of engineering? Nope, professional money extractor too. Wasn’t this obvious? I’ve been in the software industry for long enough to distinguish people who do actual work from those who don’t. All the VPs I’ve encountered share the following traits: - huge paychecks - they hire others under their supervision to do the actual job - you don’t actually know what th…

I've worked with two amazing VPs of eng, one of which unified our ops and dev teams in purpose and goals, and the other was able to re-focus us from firefighting to sustainable growth in engineering projects. They were worth, literally, their weight in gold to the success of the company. These happened at a hundred person eng dept and a 300 person eng org if I recall. I have also worked with a couple who I am not sur…

> I've worked with two amazing VPs of eng

I'm at a startup that is at an earlier stage than your two examples. Our CEO hired a VP Eng on a tight schedule and didn't give the engineering team an opportunity to interview him. I was definitely suspicious, especially given past experiences with the "professional manager" types we're all discussing here. The day I knew it was going to be fine was the day I went into the shop early, discovered that the lights were already on, and found him in the back laying out a bunch of holes to drill in an aluminum plate.

"Uhhhh what's up man?"

"The mounting plate from the contractors didn't fit right so I'm making a new one. I know you guys have electronics to mount and test today and don't want you to be blocked"

"...need a hand?"

Re: Founder Mode

#185

Post by osnium123 »

jerrygoyal wrote: post #6

> Whatever founder mode consists of, it's pretty clear that it's going to break the principle that the CEO should engage with the company only via his or her direct reports. Jensen Huang (Nvidia) engages with only direct reports.

I was reading that he encourages people from the lower levels to also interact with him.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-shares-manageme...

Re: Founder Mode

#186

Post by kragen »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #147
richrichie wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Synthesizing conventional wisdom into readable blog posts is Paul Graham's specialty though. It clearly has a market.

Was it conventional wisdom when he published an article suggesting that lisp knowledge would have prevented 9/11 hijackers from succeeding? It’s so conventional that he de-listed the article but keeps it published and available by URL

what's the url? usually pg thinks lisp knowledge makes people more likely to succeed, not less

Re: Founder Mode

#188

Post by sarbak »

neom wrote: post #130

This is conventional wisdom. https://hbr.org/2004/01/managers-and-leaders-are-they-differ... https://hbr.org/2016/06/do-managers-and-leaders-really-do-di... https://hbr.org/2022/09/the-best-managers-are-leaders-and-vi... Almost every HBR "Must Read" series on enterprise management says the same thing as this blog post. The business world has been talking about this stuff since the 90s.

Leader and founder is not the same thing.

I think the key difference is that a founder has a much better understanding of the company as a complex system. This understanding includes not just how people think it works at a certain point. It includes all the previous attempts, reasoning behind those attemps, the context of past failures and successes, the personal dynamics behind those choices.

Complex systems are notoriously hard to understand. Seeing the system develop from zero to complexity is an experience and perspective that is impossible to replace. Even most early employees don't have a comparable understanding.

Of course not all founders know everything about all the key components of their businesses, but the founding team does have a much much better understanding than other person. I think that's why founders get frustrated with ineffective things. While most others have to account for unknown unknowns and give others benefit of doubt, the founders have a much better and robust understanding of why things happen the way they happen.

The difference between management and leadership may be more about where you focus and how you engage others. Being a founder and being a leader is different in how well you understand the system.

Re: Founder Mode

#189

Post by neom »

tinco wrote: post #174
neom wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I misinterpreted Pauls blog post, but what i got was: Mangers != Leaders, Leaders != Managers. Management and Leadership need to be well understood in any organization. Good Mangers can be good leaders. The CEO is often the manager of the leadership. This is effectively what they teach in the Harvard MBA.

Yeah I think you did. You can't just switch founder for leader. A great leader would inspire the organization to work productively and effectively, but that's not what distinguishes the founder. The founder would make sure the organization is actually working on the most effective thing, and I think what Paul tries to convey is that one of the tools the founder uses to accomplish this is crossing the organizational t…

But what scale are we talking about? I've scaled from zero to IPO a couple of times, I've never seen past a few k people, airbnb is at 38,000. The only real world stuff I know to get about leadership and management at 38,000 people is learnings from harvard. I thought Brian was saying he manages his leadership team tightly, not that he spends a lot of time with ICs? I think that's conventional advice, manage your leadership team well? What is skip level at this scale? CEO going to sr. director level? I don't mind having lunch with a VP but I can't imagine doing work with them from the C level?

To my mind the CEO job at scale is 4 things - Keeping the fight fair-- The leadership and executive management should argue viciously, The CEO should make sure these conflicts remain constructive and aligned with company goals

Holding the vision true-- There's a risk of mission drift, continually reinforce and refine the company's vision, make sure all leaders remain aligned with longterm goals

Enforcing strategic adherence-- A strategy is only as good as its execution. ensure the leadership team not only understands the strategy but implements it across all levels of the organization. Manager of Leaders

Deal with the real world-- Q-calls, investor relations, supply chains/vendors/etc.

This is often the problem I have with business advice, it's general but not generally applicable. Scale matters probably most in the context, followed by the type of business.

Re: Founder Mode

#190

Post by cal85 »

giarc wrote: post #158
getnormality wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I carefully reviewed all three of these articles. While it's possible that I still missed something, I did not find any material that aligns with the unique point of Paul's post. Nothing that says leaders may have to directly engage with employees underneath their direct reports to understand what is actually going on in the company. It is perhaps possible to interpret these articles as saying anything whatsoever, bu…

But even PG goes back on that by saying "Obviously founders can't keep running a 2000 person company the way they ran it when it had 20. There's going to have to be some amount of delegation." So what he is saying is managers should talk to their reports. He writes like this is some groundbreaking realization, but to me I'm not even sure what he's getting at. For example he pushes back against the idea of hiring and…

When he says "That would be micromanaging them, which is bad" he is describing the traditional view. He continues, "Hire good people and give them room to do their jobs. Sounds great when it's described that way, doesn't it? Except in practice..."
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