Why "founder mode" is a rebranding for micromanaging, top-down leaders(news.paolo.pm)
news.paolo.pm
Why "founder mode" is a rebranding for micromanaging, top-down leaders
https://news.paolo.pm/p/apple-with-worms-why-founder-mode
29 comments
Multiple things can be true at the same time.
1. Many companies have too many layers of management, with too much abstraction from the actual product, which kills drive and focus.
2. Micromanagement and disempowerment of employees is bad management and ultimately harmful.
In practice these two facts often exist in tension, but they are not inherently contradictory, and it's possible to thread the needle.
1. Many companies have too many layers of management, with too much abstraction from the actual product, which kills drive and focus.
2. Micromanagement and disempowerment of employees is bad management and ultimately harmful.
In practice these two facts often exist in tension, but they are not inherently contradictory, and it's possible to thread the needle.
Founders will be managing (perhaps future) senior executives, not junior managers. Senior execs are given a lot of leeway (budgets, staff, goal setting) and will have massive impact on the “shape” of the business overall. As such they are willful people, and not really “micromanagable”. These are absolutely the kind of people you need in these positions.
With this willfulness comes the challenge of “herding the cats” to an achieve an ultra-focused vision. This is what requires “founder mode”.
No talented founder will resort to typical junior manager mircromanagement antics as it would drive the company into the ground. Instead, they seem to have some kind of “reality distortion field” ability, what we’re calling “founder mode” here. The challenge is discovering the parts and pieces that make up “founder mode”… we know it exists but don’t really understand it.
With this willfulness comes the challenge of “herding the cats” to an achieve an ultra-focused vision. This is what requires “founder mode”.
No talented founder will resort to typical junior manager mircromanagement antics as it would drive the company into the ground. Instead, they seem to have some kind of “reality distortion field” ability, what we’re calling “founder mode” here. The challenge is discovering the parts and pieces that make up “founder mode”… we know it exists but don’t really understand it.
>Reality distortion field
Read: Weaponized Information Asymmetry and Perception Management
It relies on being viewed as larger than life, and exploiting the ignorance or inability of others to ask the right questions. When asked the right questions, it requires a willingness to lie one's ass off.
It isn't some magical mystical thing. It's just the willingness to meat grinder everything including imposed obligations and staff in the name of doing what it is you want to do.
It isn't sexy though when you call a spade a spade. So no one does. Having been the exec/manager to walk away from people/businesses after calling them out on their behavior, it is no mystery.
It relies on being viewed as larger than life, and exploiting the ignorance or inability of others to ask the right questions. When asked the right questions, it requires a willingness to lie one's ass off.
It isn't some magical mystical thing. It's just the willingness to meat grinder everything including imposed obligations and staff in the name of doing what it is you want to do.
It isn't sexy though when you call a spade a spade. So no one does. Having been the exec/manager to walk away from people/businesses after calling them out on their behavior, it is no mystery.
> we know it exists but don’t really understand it.
We only know that some people believe it to exist, wherever it actually does is an entirely different matter.
And if it exists, wherever it's a positive of a negative influence is another layer of uncertainty, that almost certainly entirely depends on the other people that they're working together with.
We only know that some people believe it to exist, wherever it actually does is an entirely different matter.
And if it exists, wherever it's a positive of a negative influence is another layer of uncertainty, that almost certainly entirely depends on the other people that they're working together with.
> a rebranding for micromanaging, top-down leaders
And why is that a problem? I understand the connotation of "micromanaging". It's just that in the context of this discussion, it really depends on what we mean by "micromanaging". The CEO of Scale AI has a better interpretation: micromanaging is just managing. So, micromanaging will be bad if such managing is counter productive, otherwise it is good. For positive examples, I'd say Steve Job's "micromanaging" of product details is amazing (he wants to to have elegance inside a computer case. How micromanaging is that!). Jeff Bezos' micromanaging on company culture is also amazing - he even dictates on how every team should conduct meetings and he forces how every team manages service access. How micromanaging is that!
On a personal level, I'd always crave for a leader who can frequently and correctly tell me how wrong I am or how much better I can do things. That'll be a hell of a learning experience.
And why is that a problem? I understand the connotation of "micromanaging". It's just that in the context of this discussion, it really depends on what we mean by "micromanaging". The CEO of Scale AI has a better interpretation: micromanaging is just managing. So, micromanaging will be bad if such managing is counter productive, otherwise it is good. For positive examples, I'd say Steve Job's "micromanaging" of product details is amazing (he wants to to have elegance inside a computer case. How micromanaging is that!). Jeff Bezos' micromanaging on company culture is also amazing - he even dictates on how every team should conduct meetings and he forces how every team manages service access. How micromanaging is that!
On a personal level, I'd always crave for a leader who can frequently and correctly tell me how wrong I am or how much better I can do things. That'll be a hell of a learning experience.
"Moreover, even for those who would like to rightfully consider Airbnb results positive, there’s a huge price on culture companies managed this way have to pay. We can get a glimpse from a few Glassdoor reviews I found, all subsequent to Chesky’s new approach..."
Glassdoor reviews are a poor measure of a company's culture.
Glassdoor reviews are a poor measure of a company's culture.
This article is disingenuous all the way down:
"“founder mode” paradigm, a valid alternative to “skillful liars”
"I guess anyone can see how a spreadsheet with yellow, red and green statuses is nothing groundbreaking really!"
"Graham goes as far as positioning this as an entirely new paradigm, literally believing he's discovered something that nobody knew existed before."
"this approach is well known to business schools as poor, dysfunctional management, and the alternative to that is of course good management."
I could keep going. I am happy to read arguments for/against Founder Mode, but I want to read an actual argument, not ad hominem dressed in smarty pants.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says"
"“founder mode” paradigm, a valid alternative to “skillful liars”
"I guess anyone can see how a spreadsheet with yellow, red and green statuses is nothing groundbreaking really!"
"Graham goes as far as positioning this as an entirely new paradigm, literally believing he's discovered something that nobody knew existed before."
"this approach is well known to business schools as poor, dysfunctional management, and the alternative to that is of course good management."
I could keep going. I am happy to read arguments for/against Founder Mode, but I want to read an actual argument, not ad hominem dressed in smarty pants.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says"
Just going with the renewed authoritarian flow, preparing us for JD Vance going “founder mode” on the government.
It’s a cyclical thing that ends up in disaster about 4-8 years down the road.
It’s a cyclical thing that ends up in disaster about 4-8 years down the road.
As a founder as well, in the current global economy, I think the main driver for ‘founder mode’ is to improve the ROI of the product team by forcing the company to focus on fewer features (and lay off a part of the workforce)
The tone of this article is a bit overly negative but I agree with the main point: you’re going to scale more effectively if you can empower, train, and trust others rather than doing everything yourself.
I guess this is the first time I’ve seen “founder mode” as a new thing, apparently I’m out of touch. But from what I’ve read and how it matches up with my experience with horrible management in the past, driving down micromanagement and all that, all it is is a fear response. Fear about not having control, fear about not having hired correctly, fear the you’re not as influential as you’ve deluded yourself to be, and on and on, that’s all I can see here. This guy is so wrapped up with having to dictate everything he has to make it miserable for the people that should actually be doing stuff, you know, the people he hired.
If you want to have impact, do less! Have a clear vision above all, be able to articulate it, rally people behind you, micromanagement “founder mode” is just a bandaid over poor fearful, leadership. Sure, micromanage your startup of five people, after that you should have the discretion to hire people to carry out your vision. Otherwise, just get out, you’ll just make your life and everyone else’s less miserable otherwise.
If you want to have impact, do less! Have a clear vision above all, be able to articulate it, rally people behind you, micromanagement “founder mode” is just a bandaid over poor fearful, leadership. Sure, micromanage your startup of five people, after that you should have the discretion to hire people to carry out your vision. Otherwise, just get out, you’ll just make your life and everyone else’s less miserable otherwise.
>driving down micromanagement and all that, all it is is a fear response.
I completely agree, I've seen micromanagers like this. It's fear, and driving the fear is lack of trust. For a good and honest employee, if the founder steps down and says "hey I don't trust you" the instinct is to say "screw you, I'm coming at this honest and fair, working my tail off, now I don't really trust you either" and now it sucks for all parties.
A good leader in "founder mode" -- that's a school principal rolling up their sleeves, picking up a mop, and working shoulder to shoulder with the janitor. "This task is key, let's knock it out together". Maybe they don't have trust yet, maybe they have fear, who knows - but there's an open mind. They'll work together and the founder will figure it out through working together. If all goes well at the end there will be trust, respect, good culture. If it goes poorly now the founder can have a great sense that this was not a good hire. This leader understands that now the janitor will feel "seen", understood, that their work is very important, that leadership is supportive. And will work harder.
A poor leader in "founder mode" -- the school principal asks the janitor to check in every 30 minutes with mopping updates. The mopping will suffer due to the overhead, and constant adjustment to principal feedback. The principal will think "I'm going to put the heat on this guy, then that will make him work MUCH harder!" But in fact it will backfire, the janitor now thinks of the principal as a clown who knows nothing about mopping. The mopping update system changes every week, from every 60 minutes to every 15 minutes, then a mopping update app to increase efficiency. Then the IT department is asked to develop a mopping monitoring app. Ultimately the whole thing collapses and morale dies.
Both these allegorical stories are based on real YC founders I have worked with. Guess which company is wildly successful.
The irony for me is that the "let me put the pressure on this guy, he'll work harder" guy - actually on a personal level a very kind, compassionate, caring guy. Really means well, genuinely cares about his fellow man. Just has this model in their head that generally people don't work unless pressured to do so, like external pressure is a requisite to get anything done at all. My own view is that if a leader showers their people with kindness and respect -- builds loyalty -- then their reports will do anything to please that leader, granted this requires screening for good people during hiring.
Anyway, I think founder mode can be good or bad. It just intensifies either the toxic traits of a bad micromanager leader or it intensifies the positive traits and goodwill of a strong leader.
I completely agree, I've seen micromanagers like this. It's fear, and driving the fear is lack of trust. For a good and honest employee, if the founder steps down and says "hey I don't trust you" the instinct is to say "screw you, I'm coming at this honest and fair, working my tail off, now I don't really trust you either" and now it sucks for all parties.
A good leader in "founder mode" -- that's a school principal rolling up their sleeves, picking up a mop, and working shoulder to shoulder with the janitor. "This task is key, let's knock it out together". Maybe they don't have trust yet, maybe they have fear, who knows - but there's an open mind. They'll work together and the founder will figure it out through working together. If all goes well at the end there will be trust, respect, good culture. If it goes poorly now the founder can have a great sense that this was not a good hire. This leader understands that now the janitor will feel "seen", understood, that their work is very important, that leadership is supportive. And will work harder.
A poor leader in "founder mode" -- the school principal asks the janitor to check in every 30 minutes with mopping updates. The mopping will suffer due to the overhead, and constant adjustment to principal feedback. The principal will think "I'm going to put the heat on this guy, then that will make him work MUCH harder!" But in fact it will backfire, the janitor now thinks of the principal as a clown who knows nothing about mopping. The mopping update system changes every week, from every 60 minutes to every 15 minutes, then a mopping update app to increase efficiency. Then the IT department is asked to develop a mopping monitoring app. Ultimately the whole thing collapses and morale dies.
Both these allegorical stories are based on real YC founders I have worked with. Guess which company is wildly successful.
The irony for me is that the "let me put the pressure on this guy, he'll work harder" guy - actually on a personal level a very kind, compassionate, caring guy. Really means well, genuinely cares about his fellow man. Just has this model in their head that generally people don't work unless pressured to do so, like external pressure is a requisite to get anything done at all. My own view is that if a leader showers their people with kindness and respect -- builds loyalty -- then their reports will do anything to please that leader, granted this requires screening for good people during hiring.
Anyway, I think founder mode can be good or bad. It just intensifies either the toxic traits of a bad micromanager leader or it intensifies the positive traits and goodwill of a strong leader.
Three days later, but “founder mode” to me is about purview. Maybe it’s the same thing though
of course an accelerator would dislike c levels... they would have more people to convince. if there are no c levels in their portfolio, they only have to push the founder for a pivot etc.
I'll share a different perspective to this whole founder mode debate: my instinct is that "founder mode" is a useless phrase and founders can be equal parts helpful or detrimental. The leaders who we would generally uphold as being highly successful founders who built respectable companies didn't necessarily do so through something intrinsic to being a founder, but rather by deeply _giving a shit_ about the products they build and the customer experiences of those products.
It follows that founders (or employees who were early enough to have a founding mentality), often, tend to care more about their products and services than anyone else will and this can lead to centralized decision making being highly effective. This is the case for Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Howard Schultz, Brian Chesky, and Elon Musk (please set aside any recent personal opinions of him).
It also follows that "manager" CEOs and senior leaders are often hired into a role with different incentives that relate far less to them caring about the product, customer, or business, and more to the movement of specific metrics. In these cases, centralized decision making can lead to deterioration of a product experience to the point of irrelevance. This list might include Scott Thompson (Yahoo), Dennis Muilenburg (Boeing), etc.
I don't believe it is anything inherent to a "founder" or "manager." Simply put: centralized decision making can be effective in an organization where the centralized decision maker has the insights and is close enough to the customer and market to make good decisions. It can be massively detrimental if the person is detached from the customer and market.
It is just the case that a founder happens to be much more likely to be close to the customer and the market than a hired leader, and likely has much more of a desire to be so.
This might be wrong, but it has tracked in my career so far. I've seen great managers, horrible managers, great founders, and horrible founders. The only thing that has been consistent is that the great ones are _far_ more likely to deeply understand the customer they serve and the product they build than the bad ones.
It follows that founders (or employees who were early enough to have a founding mentality), often, tend to care more about their products and services than anyone else will and this can lead to centralized decision making being highly effective. This is the case for Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Howard Schultz, Brian Chesky, and Elon Musk (please set aside any recent personal opinions of him).
It also follows that "manager" CEOs and senior leaders are often hired into a role with different incentives that relate far less to them caring about the product, customer, or business, and more to the movement of specific metrics. In these cases, centralized decision making can lead to deterioration of a product experience to the point of irrelevance. This list might include Scott Thompson (Yahoo), Dennis Muilenburg (Boeing), etc.
I don't believe it is anything inherent to a "founder" or "manager." Simply put: centralized decision making can be effective in an organization where the centralized decision maker has the insights and is close enough to the customer and market to make good decisions. It can be massively detrimental if the person is detached from the customer and market.
It is just the case that a founder happens to be much more likely to be close to the customer and the market than a hired leader, and likely has much more of a desire to be so.
This might be wrong, but it has tracked in my career so far. I've seen great managers, horrible managers, great founders, and horrible founders. The only thing that has been consistent is that the great ones are _far_ more likely to deeply understand the customer they serve and the product they build than the bad ones.
Musk "was quite successful in the earlier days of Tesla". lol as if he's still not kicking butt. Did you see his company plucked a rocket the size of the Statue of Liberty out of the air?
I don't necessarily disagree. The comment was intended to avoid a flame war of someone arguing about his recent (personal) antics, not company performance. I updated the parenthetical to reflect this.
haha got it- sorry for trying to start the flame war anyways!
Relevant to how Founder Mode might be received, something I've started to wonder about:
For those people who interact with many early startup founders, what rates of poor behavior (e.g., oblivious, abrasive, arrogant, narcissistic, coked-up) are you seeing in the last few years?
For those people who interact with many early startup founders, what rates of poor behavior (e.g., oblivious, abrasive, arrogant, narcissistic, coked-up) are you seeing in the last few years?
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The article is garbage. I just checked 1 example on a bit longer timescale: Tesla 5Y is 1100% up, it's amazing stock performance.
Actually there isn't even 2Y option in Google search, so the author should explain why he chose that time horizon (my guess is just to make a negative article).
Actually there isn't even 2Y option in Google search, so the author should explain why he chose that time horizon (my guess is just to make a negative article).
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Bill Gates still runs product at Microsoft, bad counter example...
All these middle managers are complaining about founder-mode espousing micromanagement.
Yet, when given the freedom, these middle-managers themselves abuse it to micromanage their own reports via measures for stack ranking, butts on seats, # of commits, or other such BS proxy metrics.
Yet, when given the freedom, these middle-managers themselves abuse it to micromanage their own reports via measures for stack ranking, butts on seats, # of commits, or other such BS proxy metrics.
Founder mode encourages that. It eliminates autonomous product teams not people managers. Autonomous product teams specifically align on metrics that matter.
If you were good at product but bad at business hire a business person and accept that CEO is a different skill set. Don't wrap it up in some egotistic 'once more unto the breach' nonsense.