I know it's unlikely but it would be great if this talk could be shared on YouTube (if it isn't already. I couldn't find it when I checked earlier). There are the occasional talks from founders that turn out to be timeless. Would love for ycombinator to take a bet on this one and see how it pans out.
Founder Mode
591–600 of 772 posts
Re: Founder Mode
#592I know it's unlikely but it would be great if this talk could be shared on YouTube (if it isn't already. I couldn't find it when I checked earlier). There are the occasional talks from founders that turn out to be timeless. Would love for ycombinator to take a bet on this one and see how it pans out.
Unfortunately it was not recorded. We were all wishing it were recorded. PG asked me to write down everything I could remember before I forgot.
Re: Founder Mode
#593I know it's unlikely but it would be great if this talk could be shared on YouTube (if it isn't already. I couldn't find it when I checked earlier). There are the occasional talks from founders that turn out to be timeless. Would love for ycombinator to take a bet on this one and see how it pans out.
Unfortunately it was not recorded. We were all wishing it were recorded. PG asked me to write down everything I could remember before I forgot.
Where can we read it?
Re: Founder Mode
#594Earlier quoted context omitted.
A really special failure mode is to hire management from proper grown up companies to implement real processes for your aspirationally-real startup. Serious economic misunderstanding on multiple levels and a popular choice nevertheless.
My first exposure to big company management was, ironically, at a startup. They hired their C-level executives from big companies. Those executives hired VPs and extra layers of management who were also from big companies. Very quickly we had a deep org chart where ICs could be 5 steps removed from the CEO even though they hadn’t decided exactly what product we were going to build. Everything was done by committee in…
Hiring is so scary.
If you get the wrong people in the beginning, it can throw you into a wrong trajectory that's almost impossible to correct later.
Re: Founder Mode
#595I 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'…
This is just a different way of saying your managers need to be more engaged with the work they are doing and not just worry about abstract metrics like measuring progress by number of tickets they close or something as such. The thing is this is hard to pull off even for the actual founders. For starters its just hard, and tiring(and even pointless) to keep jumping over the ever increasing bar. Even more so when you…
Some people like contributing to successful projects though, and stay engaged even while maintaining work-life balance.
Re: Founder Mode
#596I 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'…
That crucial thing was probably being lucky enough to be born 50 years ago before all the low hanging work we take for granted had been done.
I just want to write code.
I don't want all the fuss anymore.
It's all just such a mess now.
Re: Founder Mode
#597Earlier quoted context omitted.
How to fire well?
Yes, how to let go of people quickly who aren’t working out. Firing people always sucks, and many managers avoid it for too long, to the detriment of the company and the other employees.
I meant what is your advice regarding how to do it well/what you mean by doing it well, precisely because of what you wrote :) apologies for the unclarity
Re: Founder Mode
#598Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I can tell he’s provided an empty vessel with a smart-sounding, but undefined term, and this entire thread is people projecting their beliefs into that vessel. Nearly none of these comments are grounded in his actual text.
Then don't believe it. It's not some water tight argument he's making, it's not "law of physics" right.
That’s the point we’re making here: there is no argument.
Re: Founder Mode
#599Earlier quoted context omitted.
My first exposure to big company management was, ironically, at a startup. They hired their C-level executives from big companies. Those executives hired VPs and extra layers of management who were also from big companies. Very quickly we had a deep org chart where ICs could be 5 steps removed from the CEO even though they hadn’t decided exactly what product we were going to build. Everything was done by committee in…
This sounds like my last company. Was it a new space startup in the Bay area?
Interesting, what new space startup was that?
Re: Founder Mode
#600Isn'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'm belatedly learning this lesson (you'd think I'd have caught on earlier in my career) I very much want to stick to small young startups in future, but there's less demand for tech writers there.
Startups need tech writers very much, but only at a certain size you can do it full time at one company.
Either you freelance and work for multiple companies or you add other skills to your portfolio.
For example
- creating videos of your articles/docs
- hosting events like hackathons or meetups
- developing libraries or integrating the product with popular platforms