I think people are conflating “founder mode” with “founder led”.
Those are two very different things.
Look to Oracle as an example of a “founder mode” company that is not founder led.
Founder Mode
371–380 of 772 posts
Re: Founder Mode
#372This 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…
Agree completely, this is an essay without a thesis, or any valuable evidence or argument. This is a C- college essay at best.
I’m sad about that because I was very interested in the title.
Re: Founder Mode
#373This 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 tha…
These are your personal essay points, not what was in the piece itself.
Re: Founder Mode
#374Reminds me of most small businesses.
Re: Founder Mode
#375After dumping on a lot of pg's recent essays that I found to be quite myopic, I really liked this one and thought it was insightful.
I am curious, though, if anyone knows some more of the specifics that Chesky shared about the "disasters" that resulted from the bad advice he followed in the past. I ask because I've seen two bad, but very different, scenarios:
1. One is to hire really smart people and just "let them loose", but without overarching guidance or direction. While I got burned by this model in a past job in my own career, I think a good well-known example of this currently is Google's "WTFs" around product management, i.e. lots of products launching with fanfare then get killed shortly thereafter, bizarre and confusing product naming schemes (Google Wallet/Android Wallet/GPay/Google Pay anyone? I honestly don't even remember), new product launches but then old, easily fixable bugs/feature requests that languish for years.
2. The other model, which is more of what PG seems to be hinting at, is the "John Sculley" model, i.e. treating employees like to interchangeable widgets, thinking of your org structure as black boxes with only specific interface points, etc.
That is, I've seen both of these models fail, but in very different ways, so I'm curious what happened at AirBnB.
Re: Founder Mode
#376Is there a point to this article? It sounds like waffle.
Re: Founder Mode
#377This 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…
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Re: Founder Mode
#378I've thought about this topic a lot before. The concept of a founder vs manager "mode" doesn't resonate with me, but the message boils down to this: founders have more freedom to approve high risk/high reward initiatives, while shielding everybody else on downside. It's "their company" and their job can stomach some turmoil in the name of winning.
Managers don't have this safety net; failures will be evaluated more critically and they probably aren't the types to win at all costs. So they are more focused on avoiding fatal mistakes that will lose them their jobs, but don't end up achieving as much on average.
In a sports analogy, founders play to win and managers play not to lose.
But it's a spectrum not black and white. Every founder has to delegate and every founder has to bring on great people to do the work and let them breathe. I think its about freely enabling bold projects while minimizing the fear and anxiety at all levels, and figuring out the decision making and execution structure that works the best.
Re: Founder Mode
#379The premise of this is that advice to hire "Hire good people and give them room to do their jobs" is bad because that turns into "hire professional fakers and let them drive the company into the ground". So, if I get this right, hiring is done by the founder, who is not capable of choosing good people in a sea of fakers, and because of founders incompetency the advice is bad? I do agree that every founder/CEO should…
I think because you can't give C-level/(senior) manager candidates whiteboard interviews. The answers are all "it depends" and also depend on how the person explains it. Not to mention tech founders are usually technical people who are not used to bullshitters. Your concern is valid, but since the company is their "baby", they care more than those for-hire professionals who can go to greener pastures.
> Your concern is valid, but since the company is their "baby", they care more than those for-hire professionals who can go to greener pastures.
This is the main aspect I think, that everyone keeps missing. The “professional fakers” work first and foremost for themselves. They make great decisions, for them. But not necessarily for the company.
Re: Founder Mode
#380> what this often turns out to mean is: hire professional fakers
Yep, that is the key problem.
"Hire good people..." is good advice. If it is failing for so many startups, then the quote above is what is really going on -- startups are failing to hire good people. If they had been succeeding, the advice would have worked. What should be getting asked is how to identify what "good" is for a specific founder's vision. It won't be the same "good" as the next person, and definitely not the same "good" as larger corporations with different histories.