Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What is "founder mode"?

tomblomfield.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 68 posts

Re: What is "founder mode"?

#21

Post by debit-freak »

notahacker wrote: post #18
debit-freak wrote: post #5

To equity-holders, it's code for the obsession that makes founders work extra-hard to please the financiers. To employees, it's code for being an abusive asshole. FWIW, I would never describe any of the (successful, with exits and now-successful brands) founders I worked for this way. It's disgusting. It's been a long, long time since pg had to answer to employees. He clearly no longer understands the current labor m…

I think the most damning comment of all on "founder mode" came not from the critics but from a LinkedIn post giving Brian Chesky apparently sincere praise for purportedly examplifying it. Apparently AirBNB had completely screwed up customer support responses to a fellow founder to the extent they'd blocked her, but as she was a member of the YC alumni network , a quick message and Brian resolved her in a few minutes,…

The behavior you've described seems deeply dysfunctional but for reasons that are entirely separate from how the term "founder mode" has gained a life of its own. "Founder mode" is being weaponized to critique people for entering a market much more competitive and dry of opportunity than it was thirty years ago Without acknowledging any change in the market the article at hand seems to be just a person belching complaints without anything to say.

Re: What is "founder mode"?

#22

Post by serial_dev »

Aurornis wrote: post #4

> At Monzo, we experimented with some pretty wacky management structures at times. There was a period when our middle managers were basically just responsible for “pastoral care” of each employee. They were not connected at all with the output that the ICs were producing. It was totally insane and overlapped with our period of lowest productivity by far. Funny - I took a manager role where the company was trying this…

I got, what feels like, the most productive month of the year behind me, because I thought that the data nerd top executives flagged me because my GitHub stats were down and they keep an eye on me. It turns out I took something as a hint from my engineering manager that wasn’t directed towards me, and my stats were fine.

In the end they got increased productivity out of me because I thought I was flagged in some faceless soulless nonsensical “insights” dashboard.

And by productive I mean that I feel like I made more impactful changes than usually, so I’m not referring to GitHub stats with fake cheat PRs and changes.

Re: What is "founder mode"?

#23

Post by __loam »

nine_zeros wrote: post #12

> Instead, I believe that great leaders have to be able to dig into the details, have an incredibly high bar for quality, and ultimately do great IC work themselves. Great managers have to manage the work - they should primarily be responsible for quality and speed of output. Managing people must be secondary to managing the product. If you are ever confused about founder-mode vs manager-mode, this is the one single…

Most of us are confused by founder mode because Paul Graham invented the term like a month ago.

Re: What is "founder mode"?

#24

Post by octopoc »

dvt wrote: post #16
swyx wrote: post #7

something jeff bezos always warned against was the "narrative fallacy" - for one to believe so strongly in a compelling story that they dont stop for data. here's the stock charts of the founder of founder mode vs a professional manager mode guy :) https://x.com/ericnewcomer/status/1830998969490526423 just a fun reminder not to take everything as gospel. to engage more substantively with TFA: > I think the general pa…

> here's the stock charts of the founder of founder mode vs a professional manager mode guy :) I've always told myself if I start a company that ever reaches, say, 250+ employees, I'd step down. First, playing a management game doesn't interest me (it's sort of like Risk vs Monopoly; the former is fun, the latter I find boring). And second, I just like building things. I wish the meme/essay would be about "builder mo…

Wow this really hits home for me. I can do long stints at a job but when I do I inevitably start building all kinds of things on the side because that’s what I love doing.

Re: What is "founder mode"?

#25

Post by Aurornis »

settsu wrote: post #20
Aurornis wrote: post #4

> At Monzo, we experimented with some pretty wacky management structures at times. There was a period when our middle managers were basically just responsible for “pastoral care” of each employee. They were not connected at all with the output that the ICs were producing. It was totally insane and overlapped with our period of lowest productivity by far. Funny - I took a manager role where the company was trying this…

> Lowest productivity period of my career, for the entire company "Productivity" is a nebulous concept in knowledge work. So unless you're referring to a factory with a very concrete, measurable output, this isn't particularly meaningful term. How was the quality and employee satisfaction (as shown by solicited feedback or subjective anecdotes, plus attrition/turnover, etc.)?

It was low productivity as in we didn’t really accomplish anything. Teams couldn’t figure out what to build because it was forbidden for managers to direct them.

Happiness was down too because everyone just wanted to work, but we had these obscure rules about who could decide what was worked on (not managers) that turned into roadblocks to getting anything done across teams.

This wasn’t a case where “productivity” was an abstract metric that wasn’t measuring the right thing. It was just gridlock where nothing was getting done because nobody was allowed to be empowered to direct things.

Re: What is "founder mode"?

#26

Post by carabiner »

swyx wrote: post #7

something jeff bezos always warned against was the "narrative fallacy" - for one to believe so strongly in a compelling story that they dont stop for data. here's the stock charts of the founder of founder mode vs a professional manager mode guy :) https://x.com/ericnewcomer/status/1830998969490526423 just a fun reminder not to take everything as gospel. to engage more substantively with TFA: > I think the general pa…

Bezos also said, "When the anecdotes disagree with the data, it's usually the anecdotes that are right"

Re: What is "founder mode"?

#27

Post by debit-freak »

swyx wrote: post #7

something jeff bezos always warned against was the "narrative fallacy" - for one to believe so strongly in a compelling story that they dont stop for data. here's the stock charts of the founder of founder mode vs a professional manager mode guy :) https://x.com/ericnewcomer/status/1830998969490526423 just a fun reminder not to take everything as gospel. to engage more substantively with TFA: > I think the general pa…

Putting aside the inherent irrationality of stock charts for measuring anything other than the markets' (wildly inaccurate) interpretations of a topic, I agree with you. Rhetoric is a rich-mans' stand-in for actual argumentation with evidence and response to criticism.

Re: What is "founder mode"?

#28

Post by extr »

tptacek wrote: post #19
extr wrote: post #11

Feels like I am taking crazy pills when I read about this stuff. Like 1500 words that boil down to "make sure you're paying attention to whether or not people are doing a good job".

A lot of people, including people in attendance, do too. I think the reason is that people read Paul Graham posts about startup management as if they were written on stone tablets. Sometimes I think he intends for them to be taken that way (and in some cases, I think I get why), but this was not one of those cases, and the discourse ran away with it. That said: there's a real phenomenon Graham and Chesky were grappli…

I've worked in startups a long time myself. Personally I've never seen this problem, feels like it's advice literally specifically for Chesky or maybe a founders at a couple dozen other unicorns. In my experience it's a way more common problem in the other direction. Founder can't let go of the details and is mucking about in everyone's work. Or have literally just become bored with the company and can't even be bothered to hire the professional executives that are supposedly such a problem. Perhaps a hot take, but IME most professional executives/managers/MBA types are actually pretty solid people to work with and do a good job.

Re: What is "founder mode"?

#29

Post by tptacek »

extr wrote: post #28
tptacek wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people, including people in attendance, do too. I think the reason is that people read Paul Graham posts about startup management as if they were written on stone tablets. Sometimes I think he intends for them to be taken that way (and in some cases, I think I get why), but this was not one of those cases, and the discourse ran away with it. That said: there's a real phenomenon Graham and Chesky were grappli…

I've worked in startups a long time myself. Personally I've never seen this problem, feels like it's advice literally specifically for Chesky or maybe a founders at a couple dozen other unicorns. In my experience it's a way more common problem in the other direction. Founder can't let go of the details and is mucking about in everyone's work. Or have literally just become bored with the company and can't even be both…

Both things are true: there are founders who lose Github merge privileges and start meddling because they haven't defined a long-term job for themselves, and there are most definitely pasteurized processed business units that get hired and run the exact same performative playbook at startup after startup. It's not an either-or thing.
Post reply on HN