Founder Mode

'individuals who consistently meet expectations' is not only not the same thing as 'superstars', it's nearly the opposite. doing the unexpected is a defining attribute of superstars. an individual who consistently meets expectations is incapable of simultaneously being a superstar. they must exceed them, and to an astounding degree, to qualify as a 'superstar' by any normal definition of the word

many superstars aren't even good at doing the expected when it would be a good idea, often because of drug addictions

this happens for two reasons. one is that if you're selecting people along two axes, the more harshly you select on one axis, the less candidates remain to select along the other, unless the axes are perfectly correlated. the other is that, whether you're a candidate selecting strategies or a judge selecting candidates, two axes along which you can select are mean and variance. in any event where you take the best of multiple trials, the top performers will almost always have high variance, not just a high mean

I feel like this article is reaching towards similar conclusions:

https://www.palladiummag.com/2024/08/30/when-the-mismanageri...

Trained managers have learned how to continue to extract value from some discovered market, rather than create new value chains.

A common western rebuke to countries that had communist revolutions were that the revolutionary leader stayed in power for decades until their death. Joseph Stalin. Mao Zedong. Fidel Castro's power passed to his brother five years before he died, so he does not fit the cookie cutter mode fully.

Another rebuke is how the communist party filled a religious or even feudal void to some extent - Lenin's tomb in Red Square being a perfect example. I can assure you that though the Politburo felt that was a needed measure, they did feel a bit silly and embarrassed about having to do it.

Why was all of this felt necessary within the Politburo? The answer is simple, in fact the answer is somewhat answered in this essay, if parallels are allowed for. Before the revolution, all revolutionaries were true believers who faced prison, exile and death fighting against impossible odds for years and decades. Those who join the party after the success of the revolution are always feared to be the parallel of the middle manager MBA managing up. A Gorbachev, a Yeltsin. The cadre around Deng Xiaoping who reversed his purge from the party and then put him in power.

A very different circumstance, but in many ways analogous.

> paying attention to what is happening is undervalued.

Heavily agree. But paying attention to what is happening _in nature_.

Pay little attention to what is happening in symbolia.

I got rid of my cell phone 2.5 years ago after my daughter kept saying "no phone dadda". Forces me to pay attention to nature and real world every moment I'm not at my computer. Huge life improvement in every way.

When talking about Disney, I also think it's worth tossing Michael Eisner into the mix as a comparison point for a non-founder who operated in something really close to the "Founder Mode" that the article describes. He got involved in creative decisions, and - speaking to the article's mentioning of micromanagement - famously said that 'micromanagement is underrated.' His style seems close, at least, to the style the article mentions.

It's funny, because a lot of people think about a small number of bad decisions during his tenure (the amount spent on EuroDisney, souring the Pixar relationship) but I actually think Eisner's run at Disney is one of the best non-founder stints at a large company in modern American business.