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A great tech founder can scale a business to a few hundred employees while still contributing on an individual level. The typical middle manager, on the other h

A great tech founder can scale a business to a few hundred employees while still contributing on an individual level. The typical middle manager, on the other hand, seemingly requires 100% time to manage < 10 people. Why is this the case? My theory is founders are leading with a crystal clear, easy to communicate vision. That is the kind of management that scales.

torginus 4y ago
And curiously, when they go on a vacation, their absence is rarely felt, except when encountering some administrative stuff that needs to be rubber-stamped.
gmays 4y ago
Founders are also incentivized to invest much more time energy into their businesses than a middle manager. Founders also shape their org structure to something that suits them, while a middle manager has to work within the constraints of their organization, which are often stifling with significant overhead. Even basic things take inordinate amounts of time for middle managers. You could ignore them, but that often has secondary impacts like not taking care of your team (promotions, good reviews, training, etc.) or not getting your team the visibility it needs.
- osigurdson 4y ago
  >> getting the team the visibility it needs Visibility to whom? It seems like an anti-pattern that a team should have to fight for visibility in an organization. I believe this must be related to overly centralized control structures.
  - gmays 4y ago
    Yes, exactly. Large organizations are full of anti-patterns that middle managers must navigate. The gist of my comment was that middle managers have to wrestle with inefficiencies that founders don't. Said another way, founders define structure and middle managers inherit it.
    - osigurdson 4y ago
      I agree that such anti-patterns exist but they ideally should not. If shareholders and customers are not interested in these anti-patterns and inefficiencies then we should work to eliminate them.

torginus 4y ago

And curiously, when they go on a vacation, their absence is rarely felt, except when encountering some administrative stuff that needs to be rubber-stamped.

gmays 4y ago

Founders are also incentivized to invest much more time energy into their businesses than a middle manager. Founders also shape their org structure to something that suits them, while a middle manager has to work within the constraints of their organization, which are often stifling with significant overhead. Even basic things take inordinate amounts of time for middle managers. You could ignore them, but that often has secondary impacts like not taking care of your team (promotions, good reviews, training, etc.) or not getting your team the visibility it needs.

osigurdson 4y ago
>> getting the team the visibility it needs Visibility to whom? It seems like an anti-pattern that a team should have to fight for visibility in an organization. I believe this must be related to overly centralized control structures.
- gmays 4y ago
  Yes, exactly. Large organizations are full of anti-patterns that middle managers must navigate. The gist of my comment was that middle managers have to wrestle with inefficiencies that founders don't. Said another way, founders define structure and middle managers inherit it.
  - osigurdson 4y ago
    I agree that such anti-patterns exist but they ideally should not. If shareholders and customers are not interested in these anti-patterns and inefficiencies then we should work to eliminate them.