I first heard about "founder mode" from Daniel Dines, the cofounder and returning CEO of UiPath. The term came from a blog post earlier this week by Y Combinator cofounder Paul Graham, inspired by Airbnb cofounder Brian Chesky’s talk about the perils of outsourcing key leadership tasks to others. In a nutshell: Entrepreneurs are too often pressured to go into manager mode, hiring outsiders when they should have stayed in founder mode.
It felt like a bit of a yin-yang debate to me: Do you need a wartime general or a peacetime general? A Satya Nadella or a Bill Gates? Are you facing headwinds or tailwinds? Are you a man or a woman? Red pill, blue pill? I disagree with Graham’s Dilbert-like assessment of managers as "professional fakers" (Speak up, Eric Schmidt!) and can recall a time when Chesky appreciated the merits of experienced leaders. But who doesn’t love a good debate?
