"Founder Mode" and "Notes on Founder Mode" (Category Management)
I recently talked about an interesting interview with Brian Chesky, CEO and co-founder of Airbnb. (1 and 2). In this interview, Bryan talked about how he changed the way the company was run from being heavily distributed back to being a founder. (founder mode). Brian explained in detail what motivated him to make these changes, as well as what they had achieved since the change.
Recently, and more specifically in September, article authored Paul GrahamCo-founder of Y Combinator. In this article, Paul looked at the “founder mode” and “manager mode” and noted that up to this point, scaling a startup in Silicon Valley implicitly involved shifting from founder mode to manager mode. But Brian's example shows that it doesn't necessarily benefit the company. Paul even recalls Steve Jobs and his trips with key employees who did not belong to the highest ranks in the corporate hierarchy. And this violates this hierarchical organizational approach from manager mode.
Whatever founder mode consists of, it's pretty clear that it's going to break the principle that the CEO should engage with the company only via his or her direct reports. "Skip-level" meetings will become the norm instead of a practice so unusual that there's a name for it. And once you abandon that constraint there are a huge number of permutations to choose from. For example, Steve Jobs used to run an annual retreat for what he considered the 100 most important people at Apple, and these were not the 100 people highest on the org chart.
Then came the one I liked. article Anu Atluru, which dealt with the theses of Paul Graham. Here are the main points from it: 1) Most founders are in “founder mode” and most of them fail anyway
- Most early-stage startup founders are in founder mode by default
- Many founders are first-time founders with zero management experience.
- Founder mode has a dark side risk that can hurt the company and employees 2) Companies don’t fail because founders switch leadership modes. They fail because the mode switch is set up to fail, ill-timed, and rigid Scenarios where classical management leads to problems
- There’s no clear vision and strategy for the company
- The people being managed aren’t the right fit for the job.
- The context is evolving while the “leadership mode” stays rigid. 3) The best CEOs (founder or not) know how to switch between founder mode and management mode — and when they need either one
- Founder mode is akin to the wartime CEO mode. Management mode is more akin to peacetime CEO.
- “Founder mode” and “management mode” can’t be seen as static opposites. 4) A founder’s unique leadership style will put them in their zone of genius and make them happy (mostly)
- Founders need to find their own ideal leadership mode
- The tricky part? It takes practice to figure out.
As a result, it seems to me that these are very important issues for large companies, which are important not to freeze in time and space, but to remain flexible and able to respond to market changes and the emergence of competitors. It is relevant in this regard to look at Intel and how they turned from a market leader into an outsider, which Qualcomm plan out and sell further in parts:)
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