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Founder Mode
301–310 of 772 posts
Re: Founder Mode
#302Hi, exited founder here. I recently learned more about “uniqueness bias”. And I’m so glad I did, because I now realise that (with all due respect to pg) this is what propels people, upon observing some trend/possible causation, to insist that they have “discovered” something powerful and unique, hey in this case let’s call it “founder mode”.
Whereas the reality is that it’s infinitely more likely that the world of business has, in fact, considered and evaluated various similar management techniques over the past few hundred years. I often find that the vast majority of these new “insights” are usually just common sense.
Re: Founder Mode
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you looked at the stock price recently?
I'd argue decline lags value fundumentals. Sears decline took decades. The early metric is probably "viewer hours" per customer or some use base metric. That will probably dip before the revenue dips.
Zoom out on the chart. Sear's stock looks nothing like Netflix. Sears was killed by totally different circumstances.
We're at covid peak ATH again. Anyone who bought the dip in 2022, is looking like a genius with fantastic gains.
The more money Netflix has, the more they invest into better content. People look at the base metrics, which is why they are investing... along with a healthy dose of dump money into stonks that are earning more than interest rates. Once the fed starts to cut rates, things go even higher.
Re: Founder Mode
#304This 100% matches my experience.
I like to jokingly call founder mode: "fine-grained multi-level oversight". Others might call it the derogatory "micromanagement".
That doesn't mean I control every decision, or that I don't give people space to be creative. What it means is: for whatever is most important for the business, I get involved with the details. The goal is that when I move out of that area, the team I worked with is able to operate closer to founder mode than when I started.
The issue is that vision fundamentally can't be communicated by telephone, or all at once. You're trying to get to a point on the map that most people can't see. The path to it is the integration of all of the tiny decisions everyone makes along the way.
If you only course correct from the highest level you'll never get there.
Re: Founder Mode
#305This whole article is written around one key sentence: > There are things founders can do that managers can't, and not doing them feels wrong to founders, because it is. But there are absolutely no examples given of what these things actually are. Paul kinda vibes around that vague statement for 5 more paragraphs, giving absolutely nothing concrete. And to be honest this hn comment section scares me, as it feels like…
1. Be the ultimate judge of what excellence means to the company. Enforce this directly, in direct communication with people doing both a good and a bad job, instead of rigidly relying on chain of command.
2. Break the rules if the rules are stupid. Pay excellent people out of band, for example.
3. Directly fire people for incompetence and accept that some of them will sue you. Whatever. Rather pay the settlement than pay the cultural cost of keeping losers around.
4. Don't accept that some things are too detailed for the CEO to understand. Either the person can explain it to you or you have the holy authority to overrule them.
Ultimately, founder mode is about confidence, courage, and competence. It only works if you're good, and founders who are weak will obviously kill their companies if they try to do this.
So act wisely.
Edit: this is being downvoted, which I think proves the contrarian point PG is making.
Re: Founder Mode
#306"Founder Mode" vs "Manager Mode" sounds like a false dichotomy the way it's discussed here.
Would rather just never appeal to authority - whether founder or manager. Nobody knows anything. All you can do is present a case for trying X and try it - might work, might not, iterate on what does.
Given that the environment is essentially "trying stuff", staff the team with good triers: People who can build, sell, and those who can manage releases and the day-to-day to keep people building and selling and managing the current thing.
I worry that this post will inspire founders everywhere to start micromanaging worse than before. As an IC, what's worse - having a manager? Or having a micromanaging founder who plays the role of manager/dev/everything else?
Re: Founder Mode
#307This whole article is written around one key sentence: > There are things founders can do that managers can't, and not doing them feels wrong to founders, because it is. But there are absolutely no examples given of what these things actually are. Paul kinda vibes around that vague statement for 5 more paragraphs, giving absolutely nothing concrete. And to be honest this hn comment section scares me, as it feels like…
My ex colleague is still fuming after several years about case where professional manager decided to program parser that we decided was 8 story points. If this manager would have been founder it would probably have been normal stuff about founder spearheading initiative.
Re: Founder Mode
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you looked at the stock price recently?
I'd argue decline lags value fundumentals. Sears decline took decades. The early metric is probably "viewer hours" per customer or some use base metric. That will probably dip before the revenue dips.
I don't think Netflix is for you and me. I can't remember the last time I watched a Netflix show. The content is bad, the UI is bad, everything is bad compared to what I remember of the early Netflix days.
_But_ the stock is way up and their subscriber count keeps increasing. They have obviously found a formula that keeps the masses happy. And they are succeeding despite heavy competition. Can't argue with the facts.
Re: Founder Mode
#309This whole article is written around one key sentence: > There are things founders can do that managers can't, and not doing them feels wrong to founders, because it is. But there are absolutely no examples given of what these things actually are. Paul kinda vibes around that vague statement for 5 more paragraphs, giving absolutely nothing concrete. And to be honest this hn comment section scares me, as it feels like…
Couldn’t agree more. He’s talking about a management style in such a nebulous way, when I would imagine his experience and proximity to so many founders/companies could provide a little more concrete substance. This feels like a first draft, and should have “Dig deeper” written in red across the top
Re: Founder Mode
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t really understand why companies block lower level people from emailing ceo… I would think you could get chatgpt to rank the emails in some way…
Because the judgment of tens of thousands of individuals on the importance of their particular issues and the framing of said issues in a way the CEO can understand does not correlate with their disposition towards emailing the CEO.
Thats fine. But why not allow it anyway. Ceo can still ignore…