The Problem With Founders

Metadata

• Author: Judd Antin
• Full Title: The Problem With Founders
• URL: https://medium.com/onebigthought/the-problem-with-founders-4faba63d3f5f?source=rss----2fc27e03ef21---4

Highlights

• Paul Graham got it wrong. It’s not that founders should stick to founder mode. It’s that founders are bad at manager mode. It’s high time they learned to do it right. (View Highlight)
• Graham’s essay argues that there are two ways to run a company: founder mode and manager mode. In founder mode, you’re a detail oriented owner who is constantly involved. You’re in the weeds on everything, positioning your vision, your judgement as the core mechanism for driving the company forward. (View Highlight)
• Manager mode, on the other hand, is when you:

  “…hire good people and give them room to do their jobs… you tell your direct reports what to do, and it’s up to them to figure out how. But you don’t get involved in the details of what they do.” In Brian’s speech he recounted an experience that, apparently, many founders have had. As Airbnb scaled up, everyone told Brian to shift to manager mode. He tried, and it didn’t work out. So he reverted to founder mode, and has now concluded that it was a mistake to switch at all. (View Highlight)

• Where Brian, Graham, and all those founders see a failure of manager mode, I see a failure of founders. A failure to learn and adapt. And now Graham is trying to throw managerial practice under the bus. (View Highlight)
• But this is like saying algebra is wrong because you’re bad at math. I am sometimes surprised (though I shouldn’t be) by the great lengths that the rich and powerful will go to avoid having to admit their limitations or ask for help. (View Highlight)
• Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse in which one person tries to make another person question their own reality. As much as some founders would like to take that righteous stance, it’s not what’s happening here. This is a difference of perspective. Founders, from inside the bubble of founder mode, seem intent on arguing that 2+2=5. Outside the bubble, we’d just like them to get a damn tutor. (View Highlight)
• Graham’s essay feeds us a false dichotomy, as though taking a managerial approach in a larger company is somehow at odds with detail-oriented leadership. In reality, the level of ownership and involvement that founder mode requires is basically always valuable. It’s just that you can do it in more or less productive ways. (View Highlight)
• “A product dictator is a person who pulls everything towards them, sucking in decisions, collapsing structures and concentrating power until it creates a distortion field so powerful that nothing can escape.” (View Highlight)
• Using the example of Mark Zuckerberg, she points out astutely that great leaders cultivate the detailed-oriented sense of ownership in others, generating a bench of trusted leaders, even in a larger company. (View Highlight)
• “…assuming that only founders can bring this level of intensity, vision and attention to details to the table would be a big missed opportunity. Non-founder CEOs, as well as executives in charge of important business units, should also operate in founder mode, and their boards should reward these behaviors.” (View Highlight)
• But Graham has also given a generation of founders permission to skip the learning, and to reject the proven model of modern leadership. (View Highlight)
• We should be educating founders about how to avoid the mistakes that are common in the transition from smaller to larger companies. There’s a lengthly curriculum there, but here are a few mistakes that I’ve had first-hand experience with: (View Highlight)
• Failing to set a direction — Delegating to other executives effectively requires a specifically articulated vision and strategy to keep all the pieces working together. It requires a structured maintenance process to keep things on track. And it requires the patience to let other executives execute, learn, and adapt. (View Highlight)
• In founder mode you don’t have to do any of those things because all roads run through you. You don’t have to articulate strategy, and you can change it as often as you want. No maintainance processes are needed. It’s all in your head, and you’re always there. And you’re never caught impatiently wondering how it’s going because you’re the one doing it. (View Highlight)
• Then the company scales, and you try to delegate. But without the unifying thread of clear direction and maintenance over time, everyone’s running in different directions. You conclude the problem was delegating at all, when really it was just that you didn’t know how to keep everyone on track. (View Highlight)
• Using the Pocket Veto — Far from the caricature of the founder who doesn’t get involved in the details, good manager mode requires detailed engagement with leaders and teams. But good founders also practice genuine delegation. They surround themselves with people who are better than they are, help and correct where needed, give clear guidance, sufficient freedom, and strong accountability. (View Highlight)
• Many founders, having achieved so much by driving everything personally, simply don’t wanna. But rather than admitting the real reason (anxiety), they construct a narrative where their brilliance is irreplaceable. And so they talk a big game about trust and delegation, but it’s fake. They may even promote key lieutenants or bring in experienced executives. (View Highlight)
• But despite ostensibly giving others ownership, those people learn quickly the decisions are not their own. Their choices can and will be reverse at any time, probably at the last minute, and in ways that are hugely disruptive. (View Highlight)
• This is the pocket veto, and it’s maybe the single greatest source of failure for transitioning founders. It looks like manager mode failed, but really that happened because the founder sunk it with a giant salvo of anxious distrust. Who’s the professional faker now?? (View Highlight)
• Rejecting Scalable Structures — In many ways, manager mode is just a recognition that different contexts require different solutions. We need new approaches to deal with the scale and complexity of a larger company. Smart founders realize that lightweight process and scalable structures are the key to speed, quality, and scale. There are just too many things going on. Founders need to focus their energy where it’s uniquely valuable, and add structures that give them the right visibility and control, while letting the easy things be easy. (View Highlight)
• And yet, I’ve heard from founders many times that process is just bureaucracy. It’s easy to say we don’t need process when you’re at the center of everything. What’s the process? Talk to the founder. (View Highlight)
• While this is good and necessary for a small company, it fails with remarkable speed past a certain scale. Founders may not see it, though, if they’ve surrounded themselves with enablers who are willing to clean up all their messes and hide the bodies. Often they claim to others that process isn’t necessary, just as it’s being done behind their backs, and it’s the only thing keeping the company afloat. (View Highlight)
• Y Combinator could take on the task of educating its founders on the successful transition. It could help them to thoughtfully incorporate the best practices of scaling companies without losing what’s special about being a founder. But instead Graham is just fanning the flame of hero worship that’s already too common in tech. (View Highlight)