Aditya Kulkarni’s Post

As always, PG with an instant greatest hit. Here's how you know if a company's CEO goes into "manager mode": 1) They don't reply/reactji a direct slack message from you within 48 hours. 2) They don't know the major product feature announced at the company's major conference. 3) They are in more than one executive team standup (E-team, S-team, LT-team, etc). 4) Their primary computer is an iPad. 5) They routinely don't show up to all hands meetings. What else?

Great article on the "Founder Mode" by Paul Graham at Y Combinator. While what constitutes it is a great topic of research, the end note is very foresightful: "I also have another less optimistic prediction: as soon as the concept of founder mode becomes established, people will start misusing it. Founders who are unable to delegate even things they should will use founder mode as the excuse. Or managers who aren't founders will decide they should try to act like founders. That may even work, to some extent, but the results will be messy when it doesn't; the modular approach does at least limit the damage a bad CEO can do."

《𝐅𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞 》 💭 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐏𝐚𝐮𝐥 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐡𝐚𝐦 𝐨𝐧 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐤𝐲'𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐤 𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤 🔵 "Founders feel like they're being gaslit from both sides — by the people telling them they have to run their companies like managers, and by the people working for them when they do. Usually when everyone around you disagrees with you, your default assumption should be that you're mistaken. But this is one of the rare exceptions. VCs who haven't been founders themselves don't know how founders should run companies, and C-level execs, as a class, include some of the most skillful liars in the world." 🙃 "The more diplomatic way of phrasing this statement would be to say that experienced C-level execs are often very skilled at managing up. And I don't think anyone with knowledge of this world would dispute that." 🤓 "I also have another less optimistic prediction: as soon as the concept of founder mode becomes established, people will start misusing it. Founders who are unable to delegate even things they should will use founder mode as the excuse. Or managers who aren't founders will decide they should try to act like founders. That may even work, to some extent, but the results will be messy when it doesn't; the modular approach does at least limit the damage a bad CEO can do." IMO building, launching, growing and scaling startup is as much art as it is science. keep finding the right partners, team members, funders, advisors to journey with you at each point in time. there is no real conventional wisdom. #Founder #YCombinator #FounderAndBuilder

After doing my dissertation on "The Becoming of Startups", conceptualizing entrepreneuring as a process of creation- I think it is interesting the distinction between creating and managing . There is no set standard for creation, creation is experimental play that cannot be dictated by templates of organization. Creation (founders mode) is a process that is fundamentally different from maintenance and scalability. In my opinion, considering them to be synonymous would be detrimental to creative processes of entrepreneurship!

This is why I love LinkedIn. The original post about "founder VS manager mode" and Nick's comment are both like gems 💎 you find by accident. To continue on Nick's analogy: Just as parents, especially mothers, need empowerment to rightfully take the chair position on how to raise and feed their newborn, while knowing how to listen to the experts and their often contrasting advice, the founders need that empowerment too. It is in those situations where nobody in the whole world knows exactly the best way how to build, experts know what a bad case looks like, but only a person that spends all of their heart and soul and 24/7 time can actually instinctively feel whose advice to follow and what road to take. It is not always going to be the best one, but there is also so much to gain from the learning process. There are some fine intricacies there, I am most certainly not talking about extremes such as taking your child from the ER room and treating it with songs. And this "founder mode" could be misused, as the author is predicting. At the end of the day, "the beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and the startups will only go as far as the investor's and founder's ability to ride on the final frontier of human knowledge.

A good debate is worth more than 20 training sessions. You can be either for it or against it, but either way you learn something intrinsic about yourself, which is the dream outcomes of the (often dreaded) training sessions anyways. The only people who lose out are the ones you do not engage with the controversy :) This essay by Paul Graham is spot on, but might feel like a leadership limitation to some. It is an extension of 'True Ownership', basically expanding on the concept that 'Micromanagement is not always bad' and should be considered within the context of its execution. What are your thoughts on the same? https://lnkd.in/gPc79HJT

We believe we have the right experiment to test the depths of bad advice versus what could possibly be a winning organizational design. Y Combinator, if you would like to partner with us for this thought experiment, we’d be excited to collaborate. In essence, our approach is what we call the "Pulling on the Ropes" model. In this model, the middle layer is so empowered and so involved that it appears they run the company, or they at least control the outcome which, by the way, is true even in the current pyramid structure but the results are not always the best and issues are not always evident. The traditional pyramid structure evades the truth of poor communication and erosion-by-omission of the message. Half-baked information without clearly established objectives often causes middle management to misalign priorities and/or interpret the mission in their own way. In fact, this might be one of the top reasons why innovation dies. Our proposed model has the middle layer actively participating in both problem-solving and daily operations. For example, consider a hierarchy where L12 is the CEO and L1 represents warehouse staff or lowskilled entry-level employees. In this model, L6 and L7 are the key middle layers, reporting and collaborating specifically on knowledge gaps and comparing notes. Middle management is now divided into two legs: one leg focuses on long-term thinking, tackling unexplored challenges, and creating new opportunities while enabling teams to do their work. The second leg focuses on execution, creating magnificent products or invaluable services, innovating on behalf of the organization, and conducting research freely on topics that align with organizational goals. This model allows each layer to know exactly what they need to do, deliver, and achieve. The unique skill sets within each layer facilitate smoother transitions, and there are even possibilities for skipping layers when necessary, such as during escalations, impacts, or promotions. We call it "Pulling on the Ropes" because the middle layer can now pull closer any layer that they believe is not delivering correctly or is strategically more relevant. For instance, during growth phases, every worthy thought experiment (with or without Qrious Ventures) can be pulled closer, and the middle management can then guide teams towards the new mandate. Conversely, during challenging periods, every new idea to improve operations can be pulled closer and streamlined for implementation across the organization. Please feel free to reach out at [email protected] if you’d like to brainstorm further on this approach or run experiments together. We are new and we want to earn your trust. We apologize that our website is not up and ready right now; we are working toward launching it soon. In the meantime, the email address works, and so does this form. Please share your expectations with us so that we can prepare better. Thank you for taking your time. - Qrious Ventures

The number one skill set of a founder is to evolve. Evolve with the idea, evolve with the stage, evolve with the market, evolve with the people, evolve with the journey… But self doubt comes along every step of the way with every part of that evolution. Fighting through self doubt and striving to evolve is what sets a founder apart from a manager. Having been a founder, I know that now. Here’s to keeping that faith and continuing to evolve! #foundermode

As your local twitter translator, this is going bonkers in Silicon Valley. The phrase founder-mode has instantly been solidified in the zeitgeist. You will hear about this for a decade, a new meta phrase like "product-market-fit."