5 ms·

> If we've learned one thing from funding so many startups, it's that they succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders. I've heard this repeated doz

> If we've learned one thing from funding so many startups, it's that they succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders. I've heard this repeated dozens of times, and I believe it is just circular logic. 1. The success of the startup depends on the quality of the founder. 2. The quality of the founder is determined by whether or not their startup succeeds. I think some people would argue that they aren't judging the quality of the founder by whether or not their startup succeeds. But I don't know if I buy that. If some "low quality founder" creates a billion dollar business people will just say "I mis-judged him. He's a great founder." If some "high quality founder" creates a startup that fails people will say "He just didn't have what it takes as a founder", until he eventually succeeds then they'll be back to "He was a great founder all along". In other words, every founder of a successful startup is a "great founder". But only because that is baked in to the definition, despite the implication that you're actually judging their merit as a founder in some other (mysterious) way.

philippoi 6y ago
I agree. I think there's such an interest in seeing the genius behind a work which actually involves the collaboration of a group to actually succeed. Just like in team sports. There are great players who are great because they won a lot of championships, had high scoring totals, etc. But in most cases, they also had the best teams. The genius lifts their collaborators up and the inverse is also true. I wonder sometimes about great players in my favorite sport and have doubts about the career outcomes of some of their peers that seems to have a lot to do with how good their teams were, as well as how fortunate they were to avoid injury, etc. There are analogies to those factors as well in business, but they don't garner as much fascination as the idea that there's one person who really makes the thing go.
- heymijo 6y ago
  I think there's such an interest in seeing the genius behind a work which actually involves the collaboration of a group to actually succeed Walter Isaacson recognized this when he went to write his book The Innovators [0]. He intended it to be a more narrow autobiographical book like he is known for but quickly realized the technological revolution was brought about through an collaborative effort across time and space. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21856367-the-innovators https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21856367-the-innovators
  - philippoi 6y ago
    Thanks for the reference. I'm going to add that to my reading list.
crabcakes010 6y ago
It does feel a lot like confirmation bias.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
lazyjones 6y ago
What you address is not circular logic, it's just paraphrased "the proof is in the pudding".
tyre 6y ago
It's not something that's kosher to say out loud, but there is a huge spectrum of how "good" someone is at founding/running companies. We tend towards, "everyone can do it if they put their mind to it," which I'm not sure is healthy. Here are some non-quantifiable things that matter: 1. Grit/High Pain Tolerance. People who do not give up, often to the detriment of their physical, mental, and/or emotional health. 2. Structure. People who can organize — whether in their head or on paper — their business. Who is the customer, what is their problem, how do we solve it, how do we find them, why is our thing better than their thing, etc. 3. Prioritization. People who can look at the things to be done and know which are more important. 4. Communication. You have to be able to talk to people. Not talk at people, but with them as an exchange of ideas. Growing your business (sales), your team (hiring), your brand (PR), and fundraising are all reliant on your communication skills 5. Intelligence. The bar here is lower than is assumed. You don't have to be galaxy brained, but basic smarts. 6. Willingness to seek, sort, and take action on advice. You have to ask for help, but not all offers of help are useful or relevant or correct. And then you have to actually do the thing. 7. Giving up control over things you're not good at. It's good to fire yourself when you're bad at something. You can find a whole mix of these. I know founders with high grit who work on the wrong things. I know founders who prioritize incredibly well but don't have a full structure of the business in their heads and so get blindsided by an unknown unknown. I know founders who are monetarily tremendously successful that lucked into a market (some of whom were dragged into that market by others), but, were things to take a turn, their boards would fire immediately. There is certainly a scale. You don't have to be 10/10 on all of them to be "great". But the thing is — and I think this is something people have a hard time wrapping their heads around — is that when you sum all of this up, you're only increasing your odds. The odds are still minuscule that you will get lucky enough (many times over) to be in a position to have a massive company. There are excellent founders who fail for things entirely outside of their control.
- jes5199 6y ago
  I've worked at some startups that were _very_ successful, despite the founders only having a couple of these skills. Number (1) Grit seems to be mandatory, the rest can be made up for by having the right team. The thing you don't list that seems to be important is _charisma_ - successful founders can _convince people_. Sometimes that's in opposition to (4) Communication, and as an engineer that causes me pain, but it seems like convincing people to believe in something often takes the place of understanding other people's thoughts. And somehow they succeed anyway.
devsquid 6y ago
I feel like a lot of the things I've read from Paul Graham suffer from the survivor fallacy. The tech industry idolization of him is itself a form of survivor fallacy and its infatuation with "wealth makes right" is almost incestuous. Most of what he writes is just a one line fortune cookie drawn out into a 3 page essay. I HIGHLY recommend tech workers to actually break out of your bubble. So much of our ethos is being "free thinkers", but most of the "thought" is just repeated business pep talk.
- adambware 6y ago
  Tech works?
  - devsquid 6y ago
    Oops thanks

philippoi 6y ago

I agree. I think there's such an interest in seeing the genius behind a work which actually involves the collaboration of a group to actually succeed. Just like in team sports. There are great players who are great because they won a lot of championships, had high scoring totals, etc. But in most cases, they also had the best teams. The genius lifts their collaborators up and the inverse is also true. I wonder sometimes about great players in my favorite sport and have doubts about the career outcomes of some of their peers that seems to have a lot to do with how good their teams were, as well as how fortunate they were to avoid injury, etc. There are analogies to those factors as well in business, but they don't garner as much fascination as the idea that there's one person who really makes the thing go.

heymijo 6y ago
I think there's such an interest in seeing the genius behind a work which actually involves the collaboration of a group to actually succeed Walter Isaacson recognized this when he went to write his book The Innovators [0]. He intended it to be a more narrow autobiographical book like he is known for but quickly realized the technological revolution was brought about through an collaborative effort across time and space. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21856367-the-innovators https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21856367-the-innovators
- philippoi 6y ago
  Thanks for the reference. I'm going to add that to my reading list.

crabcakes010 6y ago

It does feel a lot like confirmation bias.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

lazyjones 6y ago

What you address is not circular logic, it's just paraphrased "the proof is in the pudding".

tyre 6y ago

It's not something that's kosher to say out loud, but there is a huge spectrum of how "good" someone is at founding/running companies. We tend towards, "everyone can do it if they put their mind to it," which I'm not sure is healthy. Here are some non-quantifiable things that matter: 1. Grit/High Pain Tolerance. People who do not give up, often to the detriment of their physical, mental, and/or emotional health. 2. Structure. People who can organize — whether in their head or on paper — their business. Who is the customer, what is their problem, how do we solve it, how do we find them, why is our thing better than their thing, etc. 3. Prioritization. People who can look at the things to be done and know which are more important. 4. Communication. You have to be able to talk to people. Not talk at people, but with them as an exchange of ideas. Growing your business (sales), your team (hiring), your brand (PR), and fundraising are all reliant on your communication skills 5. Intelligence. The bar here is lower than is assumed. You don't have to be galaxy brained, but basic smarts. 6. Willingness to seek, sort, and take action on advice. You have to ask for help, but not all offers of help are useful or relevant or correct. And then you have to actually do the thing. 7. Giving up control over things you're not good at. It's good to fire yourself when you're bad at something. You can find a whole mix of these. I know founders with high grit who work on the wrong things. I know founders who prioritize incredibly well but don't have a full structure of the business in their heads and so get blindsided by an unknown unknown. I know founders who are monetarily tremendously successful that lucked into a market (some of whom were dragged into that market by others), but, were things to take a turn, their boards would fire immediately. There is certainly a scale. You don't have to be 10/10 on all of them to be "great". But the thing is — and I think this is something people have a hard time wrapping their heads around — is that when you sum all of this up, you're only increasing your odds. The odds are still minuscule that you will get lucky enough (many times over) to be in a position to have a massive company. There are excellent founders who fail for things entirely outside of their control.

jes5199 6y ago
I've worked at some startups that were _very_ successful, despite the founders only having a couple of these skills. Number (1) Grit seems to be mandatory, the rest can be made up for by having the right team. The thing you don't list that seems to be important is _charisma_ - successful founders can _convince people_. Sometimes that's in opposition to (4) Communication, and as an engineer that causes me pain, but it seems like convincing people to believe in something often takes the place of understanding other people's thoughts. And somehow they succeed anyway.

devsquid 6y ago

I feel like a lot of the things I've read from Paul Graham suffer from the survivor fallacy. The tech industry idolization of him is itself a form of survivor fallacy and its infatuation with "wealth makes right" is almost incestuous. Most of what he writes is just a one line fortune cookie drawn out into a 3 page essay. I HIGHLY recommend tech workers to actually break out of your bubble. So much of our ethos is being "free thinkers", but most of the "thought" is just repeated business pep talk.

adambware 6y ago
Tech works?
- devsquid 6y ago
  Oops thanks