1. Be the ultimate judge of what excellence means to the company. Enforce this directly, in direct communication with people doing both a good and a bad job, in

1. Be the ultimate judge of what excellence means to the company. Enforce this directly, in direct communication with people doing both a good and a bad job, instead of rigidly relying on chain of command. 2. Break the rules if the rules are stupid. Pay excellent people out of band, for example. 3. Directly fire people for incompetence and accept that some of them will sue you. Whatever. Rather pay the settlement than pay the cultural cost of keeping losers around. 4. Don't accept that some things are too detailed for the CEO to understand. Either the person can explain it to you or you have the holy authority to overrule them. Ultimately, founder mode is about confidence, courage, and competence. It only works if you're good, and founders who are weak will obviously kill their companies if they try to do this. So act wisely. Edit: this is being downvoted, which I think proves the contrarian point PG is making.