Read the piece on paulgraham.com ↗
Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.
Their wordsThere are things founders can do that managers can't, and not doing them feels wrong to founders, because it is.
Their wordsIn effect there are two different ways to run a company: founder mode and manager mode. Till now most people even in Silicon Valley have implicitly assumed that scaling a startup meant switching to manager mode.
Their wordsExcept in practice, judging from the report of founder after founder, what this often turns out to mean is: hire professional fakers and let them drive the company into the ground.
Their wordsWhatever 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.
Their wordsSo founder mode will be more complicated than manager mode. But it will also work better.
Our reading
Mental modelSecond-order thinking
Their wordsI 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.
Keep reading
The other pieces are the ones whose claims are worded most like this one's. That measures language, not agreement: they may argue the opposite.