541–550 of 772 posts
though, to be fair he said it would take a year to do so: https://x.com/paulg/status/1830300111232188626?s=46&t=8sSeDI...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It clearly doesn't scale infinitely, which is why PG says you still need to delegate. The argument seems to be that if you understand the business as deeply as the founder does, you can get away with selectively breaking some conventional management wisdom.
I think I have made a poor choice by using the word "scales". I do not mean within the lifetime of the company -- that much is clear -- but scales across different startups, founders, and niches.
that's not to say the goal should always be to scale or become as big as possible, but it's interesting to think about.
Isn't this really just "actually a startup" mode vs. "a growing, professionalizing company" mode? This footnote was what got me: > [1] The more diplomatic way of phrasing this statement would be to say that experienced C-level execs are often very skilled at managing up. And I don't think anyone with knowledge of this world would dispute that. I've not founded startups. I just work in them. I'm not even a terribly im…
I think it’s still undecided if Airbnb is a force for good or a force for evil in the world. A lot, I mean a lot of people with middle incomes have bought desirable homes in nice locations and rent them out. There are many aspiring families, young couples priced out of the market because of this. Sure, this option was always a thing but the people who rent these properties out do not improve the community or unit the…
I’d love to see the numbers on this. I suspect that the middle class families buying a rental to Airbnb are largely inconsequential to the housing crisis compared to the corporations buying thousands of homes to cash in on rent for the rest of eternity.
Interestingly, the most successful managers I've seen have themselves been founders. They had both autonomy and organizational trust, and also tenacious creativity, which led to significant successes. This binary notion of "are you a Manager™ or are you a Founder™?" is a false dichotomy and leaves great people out.
A founder mentality has certain recognizable characteristics: doing whatever it takes to succeed, applying creative solutions to challenging problems, going outside your lane to win, and putting in energy well beyond the standard 9-5 expected of a standard employee. You can hire talented people with such qualities AND build an organization with trust and autonomy. Bringing it back to Chesky's disastrous results with delegation, I'd ask this: Did he just hire bad people?
This dichotomy may at worst cause an entire generation of new founders to ignore really fantastic advice, "Hire really great people, and give them the support and space to succeed." This is not antithetical to: "Oh, and those people should look like founders." It's a Both, not One-or-the-Other.
All this said, I do think PG is touching on something super interesting, which is an almost anthropological understanding of "The Founder", and view that as a very important area of discourse and study for the next generation of great companies.
The point that both PG and BC are really trying to say is that rigid, hierarchical employee types are detrimental to company's long-term success, and instead you should be building your team with hungry, bright, and creative problemsolvers who aren't afraid to break artificial rules to succeed. But you sure as hell be building an organization with trust and giving those founder-types everything they need to succeed.
Its that simple.
I know my comment will sound too cynical or not well-received in a startup incubator forum. However, what I observed in common with the founders of the B2B startups I worked on was good networking. The board members and initial contacts have much to do with the initial clients and the network effect it creates. It doesn’t matter if you have an excellent product. Without the initial boost of early adopters, you’ll str…
I grew up seeing founder mode first-hand. My dad founded Celestron, and he operated just as Paul is describing. At my current company, I see the CEO doing the exact same thing, which gives me great hope. Huge contrast from my previous start-up, for which I have great anti-hope unfortunately. (Current company is Zap Surgical Systems, with Dr. John Adler as the founder.) I've seen John everywhere, all day every day. I'…
I don’t believe it is that mysterious or revolutionary. What PG is describing is the “optimization of local maximum” problem. Founders focus on the strategic goal. Managers focus on tactical goals. Rules and processes are put in place to efficiently achieve these tactical goals. The problem is, in certain situations, these local process are at odds with the broader goal. Only the Founder has the authority to break th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a bit off topic, but I've never understood while people hold Netflix as some engineering Holy Grail. Their product is straightforward feature-wise, and pushing a low-teen megabits per second of static video data on the internet in a somewhat timely manner is not a huge technical challenge nowadays (or 10 years ago). Doing stuff like real-time video streaming, where you have to encode and push video to users with…
Bingo! Watch and be afraid.... https://youtu.be/s-vJcOfrvi0