51–60 of 68 posts
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…
Back then, you were more likely than not to get an engineer dealing with your customer support queries. There was a Slack community, a forum community and it felt very much like a scrappy little start-up that was truly making a difference in what - in the UK - had been an industry dominated by companies that didn't really care about user experience or modern technology (I'd had the misfortune of doing work for some of those banks). They even had an API which customers could use to get their own data!
The pace of progress was rapid, too. I remember asking Tom if he'd ever consider offering business current accounts, since the competition was pretty dire at the time - the answer back then was a "no, we're focussing on retail" - but I'm happy to use my Monzo business account daily now!
I had the opportunity to work on a proposal and sit down with some folks from one of Monzo's partnerships team a few weeks back for a potential collaboration which ultimately didn't end up going forwards. The staff were lovely, but it didn't feel like quite the same company I'd visited in-person years ago to collect my pre-paid card from. I guess that's something that inevitably happens as companies scale up.
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".
It's also crazy that people are buying into the idea of 'Founder Mode' when Airbnb is one of the companies that is very much riding on the moat it created a while back while not doing anything much that can even remotely be called customer-obsessive (which is the lesson they could really learn from Steve Jobs)
Airbnb may very well be making its customers happy, but when so many of those customers are 21 year-olds looking for party houses they can trash and fundamentally changing the character and safety of entire neighborhoods, is that really the most important thing? Even as the founder or executive or both of a business, you're still part of a human community and you have a duty to that community not to worsen the lives of countless bystanders in order to delight the few who happen to pay you. Make products that are valuable in general, to everybody, not products that are valuable only to your customers at everyone else's expense.
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…
The problem is about delegating effectively, especially in the case of delegating to executives. The issue is treating parts of the org as "black boxes" and optimising for the wrong thing as a founder. Some founders/CEOs delegate the things they don't want to do or aren't good at. Others want to reinvent the wheel in terms of what "managing" and "direct reports" means. Still others just want to set the vision and hire some "strategists" etc. (who's doing the work?)
Founder mode is basically optimising for the quality of the product down to the gritty details and keeping wannabe professional fakers that manage up on a short leash.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bezos also said, "When the anecdotes disagree with the data, it's usually the anecdotes that are right"
The end of that quote is "there is something wrong with the way that you are measuring your data". Which changes the meaning of the quote (without it, it's "value anecdotes over data", with it, it's "use inconsistencies with anecdotes to identify problems with data".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't like it more than you do, but it exists because it works in practical reality. To replace it you must come up with something that works even better.
I disagree with this blocking tactic of "if you want to complain about it you must come up with something better" Like, yes, let me completely redo my entire life path so I can redo one stupid argument.... I would love to, but I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth that gives me the sapce to explore these things, and I have more practical matters to attend to. Until then, we're going to be complaining to anyon…
I said that to replace it you must come up with something better.
I don't believe at all in the theory that if we only destroy the old system completely, a new just and effective system will arise from the ashes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree with this blocking tactic of "if you want to complain about it you must come up with something better" Like, yes, let me completely redo my entire life path so I can redo one stupid argument.... I would love to, but I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth that gives me the sapce to explore these things, and I have more practical matters to attend to. Until then, we're going to be complaining to anyon…
I don't mind you complaining at all! I said that to replace it you must come up with something better. I don't believe at all in the theory that if we only destroy the old system completely, a new just and effective system will arise from the ashes.
I don't claim to know what a replacement would look like, but I personally think it would hold 'servant leadership' as a primary tenet, and destroy the notion of shareholder primacy, and have some sort of increasing level of entropy that scales as the business does, to the point where large companies are simply unsustainable for all but the most important of endeavors.
Some nice take always:
-Never make someone a manager if they are not capable of being an being an reasonably competent _technical_ IC.
-If there is a situation where a manager who is not a capable ( for what ever reason) IC manages a team, then a capable IC member must be given authority to overrule any decisions that the manager may make. In this case the manger is just a co-ordinater/secretary.
- When a potential manager joins a company, make them do IC works. (already covered in the essay : ' customer service for one day a month..' )
I am glad he is calling out the C-levels for their propensity to lie and 'manage up'. This is a character trait that needs to be annihilated. We should not be filtering for what is effectively psychopathy. I have watched so many amazing and sustainable products die because someone let the MBAs in. After sitting through so much of this crap dogma in my own business school classes, I would say the vast majority of what…
I don't like it more than you do, but it exists because it works in practical reality. To replace it you must come up with something that works even better.
Huh? I thought it was obvious: don't hire the MBA types as managers.