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I struggle to see "founder mode" as something that scales. Is there not some self-selection bias occurring here, given the audience "included a lot of the most

I struggle to see "founder mode" as something that scales. Is there not some self-selection bias occurring here, given the audience "included a lot of the most successful founders we've funded"? If a founder is exceptional and all of the other stars necessary for a startup to succeed have aligned, this may be a good approach. But then we are just back to the question YC has always tried to answer: what makes a founder exceptional? What about the founders who failed _because_ they were in "founder mode"? I am not sure this article represents the beginning of a paradigm shift like it seems to think it does.

chatmasta 2y ago
Isn’t the point of founder mode that it doesn’t scale? It’s the wrong mode in all cases except the one where the founder is still in charge. It doesn’t scale, but it doesn’t need to.
resonious 2y ago
It clearly doesn't scale infinitely, which is why PG says you still need to delegate. The argument seems to be that if you understand the business as deeply as the founder does, you can get away with selectively breaking some conventional management wisdom.
- picafrost 2y ago
  I think I have made a poor choice by using the word "scales". I do not mean within the lifetime of the company -- that much is clear -- but scales across different startups, founders, and niches.
  - heed 2y ago
    the way i'm thinking about it: could apple be the size it is today, in terms of market cap and or influence, being strictly ran in "founder mode"? i'm even skeptical steve jobs could have taken it here. that's not to say the goal should always be to scale or become as big as possible, but it's interesting to think about.
    - philwelch 2y ago
      The actual scope of what Steve Jobs would be doing if he were still alive and serving as CEO today doesn’t seem like it would be much more than it was when he was alive though.
gbin 2y ago
What is described here is for me a competent technical manager. As they scale, it is just that their focus cannot be on everything at the same time so they need to pick what is the most important and help a specific team at specific times. It also means that they need a good bullshit detector to dodge those that are skilled at "managing up" and know the real underlying state. Unfortunately the organizations tend to follow Peter's principle and you end up with incompetent managers everywhere that just "manage" and don't understand what is made or how.
Sammi 2y ago
Steve Jobs scaled it. Brian Chesky, maybe the Zuck and Elon? There are multiple examples.
- alok-g 2y ago
  I would be interested in hearing about Wolfram Research too, if someome knows.
mitko 2y ago
Maybe one way to think of it is fractal management where a manager would have deep read-write interactions with few skip levels. HBR style says read everywhere, write only direct reports. And it makes for a good software design except that humans are not computers, but there is a shared global context - the company vision and mission. Through fractal management, a visionary leader can have a better chance to ensure that the vision is translated into practice at the various levels of detail. Fractal management is only part of it, though as it is a technique, but it doesn’t cover the enormous skin in the game founders have about the success of the company. For many founders, the company is their baby(I am projecting here) and they want to make it succeed. Contrastingly, many of the professional fakers instead see it as just a job, and a step on the ladder. Principal/agent. Without genuine care, and cohesive vision, fractal management can quickly devolve into chaos. It is high reward and also higher risk!!! Maybe that’s why only the founders do it but not their VPs. I wonder if any VPs at Airbnb are doing anything remotely similar to what Bryan Chesky is doing as management style? (Honestly I have no idea) I am sure that many founders failed also because of it as they might have been missing the charisma, clarity and conviction to pull this off. (PS. Take my ideas with a big serving of salt, I am a founder but not at a large organization, and the article mainly focuses on large orgs)
insane_dreamer 2y ago
I think we too often look at Jobs and say “look it works” instead of looking at the 90% of start ups that fail.
KaoruAoiShiho 2y ago
One of the contenders for the biggest company in the world is doing it well at scale. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-shares-management-style-always-learn-make-no-plans https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-shares-manageme...
convolvatron 2y ago
why are we so fixated on scaling companies? there are certainly more companies that simply failed because they thought they needed to put in the organizational structure to be huge rather than doing what startups are supposed to do - be plucky and creative and work work hard and create something of unique value. that's enough to get you your 9 figure exit. maybe companies have lifecycles, and maybe blowing out an org chart 4 levels deep is a problem for the next team?
- esafak 2y ago
  Because you don't want your company to fail because you failed to scale while your business was growing? What a terrible reason to fail; that's an own goal.
lopatin 2y ago
For it to be a paradigm shift, there would have to be some definition of the new paradigm in the article, but it really only describes what it's not (regular management). Will go out on a limb and say that this seems to be a little bit of self-indulgence by successful people.
orthoxerox 2y ago
> I struggle to see "founder mode" as something that scales. Is there not some self-selection bias occurring here, given the audience "included a lot of the most successful founders we've funded"? That's what the article is about. The "common knowledge" is that it doesn't scale at all, that as soon as you become an established company you need professional managers. Paul provides counterexamples that prove it can scale and when it does it benefits the company immensely. He is hesitant to recommend this management mode outright because he doesn't know: - what exactly do these founders do that makes their management more effective than business administration - what the limits of founder management are - how to trace the limits across the org chart

chatmasta 2y ago

Isn’t the point of founder mode that it doesn’t scale? It’s the wrong mode in all cases except the one where the founder is still in charge. It doesn’t scale, but it doesn’t need to.

resonious 2y ago

It clearly doesn't scale infinitely, which is why PG says you still need to delegate. The argument seems to be that if you understand the business as deeply as the founder does, you can get away with selectively breaking some conventional management wisdom.

picafrost 2y ago
I think I have made a poor choice by using the word "scales". I do not mean within the lifetime of the company -- that much is clear -- but scales across different startups, founders, and niches.
- heed 2y ago
  the way i'm thinking about it: could apple be the size it is today, in terms of market cap and or influence, being strictly ran in "founder mode"? i'm even skeptical steve jobs could have taken it here. that's not to say the goal should always be to scale or become as big as possible, but it's interesting to think about.
  - philwelch 2y ago
    The actual scope of what Steve Jobs would be doing if he were still alive and serving as CEO today doesn’t seem like it would be much more than it was when he was alive though.

gbin 2y ago

What is described here is for me a competent technical manager. As they scale, it is just that their focus cannot be on everything at the same time so they need to pick what is the most important and help a specific team at specific times. It also means that they need a good bullshit detector to dodge those that are skilled at "managing up" and know the real underlying state. Unfortunately the organizations tend to follow Peter's principle and you end up with incompetent managers everywhere that just "manage" and don't understand what is made or how.

Sammi 2y ago

Steve Jobs scaled it. Brian Chesky, maybe the Zuck and Elon? There are multiple examples.

alok-g 2y ago
I would be interested in hearing about Wolfram Research too, if someome knows.

mitko 2y ago

Maybe one way to think of it is fractal management where a manager would have deep read-write interactions with few skip levels. HBR style says read everywhere, write only direct reports. And it makes for a good software design except that humans are not computers, but there is a shared global context - the company vision and mission. Through fractal management, a visionary leader can have a better chance to ensure that the vision is translated into practice at the various levels of detail. Fractal management is only part of it, though as it is a technique, but it doesn’t cover the enormous skin in the game founders have about the success of the company. For many founders, the company is their baby(I am projecting here) and they want to make it succeed. Contrastingly, many of the professional fakers instead see it as just a job, and a step on the ladder. Principal/agent. Without genuine care, and cohesive vision, fractal management can quickly devolve into chaos. It is high reward and also higher risk!!! Maybe that’s why only the founders do it but not their VPs. I wonder if any VPs at Airbnb are doing anything remotely similar to what Bryan Chesky is doing as management style? (Honestly I have no idea) I am sure that many founders failed also because of it as they might have been missing the charisma, clarity and conviction to pull this off. (PS. Take my ideas with a big serving of salt, I am a founder but not at a large organization, and the article mainly focuses on large orgs)

insane_dreamer 2y ago

I think we too often look at Jobs and say “look it works” instead of looking at the 90% of start ups that fail.

KaoruAoiShiho 2y ago

One of the contenders for the biggest company in the world is doing it well at scale. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-shares-management-style-always-learn-make-no-plans https://www.tomshardware.com/news/nvidia-ceo-shares-manageme...

convolvatron 2y ago

why are we so fixated on scaling companies? there are certainly more companies that simply failed because they thought they needed to put in the organizational structure to be huge rather than doing what startups are supposed to do - be plucky and creative and work work hard and create something of unique value. that's enough to get you your 9 figure exit. maybe companies have lifecycles, and maybe blowing out an org chart 4 levels deep is a problem for the next team?

esafak 2y ago
Because you don't want your company to fail because you failed to scale while your business was growing? What a terrible reason to fail; that's an own goal.

lopatin 2y ago

For it to be a paradigm shift, there would have to be some definition of the new paradigm in the article, but it really only describes what it's not (regular management). Will go out on a limb and say that this seems to be a little bit of self-indulgence by successful people.

orthoxerox 2y ago

> I struggle to see "founder mode" as something that scales. Is there not some self-selection bias occurring here, given the audience "included a lot of the most successful founders we've funded"? That's what the article is about. The "common knowledge" is that it doesn't scale at all, that as soon as you become an established company you need professional managers. Paul provides counterexamples that prove it can scale and when it does it benefits the company immensely. He is hesitant to recommend this management mode outright because he doesn't know: - what exactly do these founders do that makes their management more effective than business administration - what the limits of founder management are - how to trace the limits across the org chart