“Founder Mode” and the Art of Mythmaking

Charity Majors · 17 Dec 2024

A change of mind in this piece

A hiring loop should have few, well-calibrated interviewers rather than many, because extra interviewers add veto points instead of judgement.

Recalls holdingI used to cast a much wider net, like I felt like people ought to get to interview anyone who was being hired over them.

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8 korrents from this piece · 1 of them a turn ↓

Charity Majors did not write this page.

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.

Our reading
"Hire great people and get out of their way" is dangerous advice for anyone in a leadership role.

Their wordsEarlier this year I started writing a piece on why “hire great people and get out of their way” is such terrible, dangerous, counterproductive advice to give anyone in a leadership role.
Our reading
A company should always have as few employees as possible, and hiring is the lever a leader reaches for last rather than first.

Their wordsYou should ALWAYS have as few employees as possible. Always. Hiring more people should never be the first lever you reach for, it’s what you do after exhausting your other options.
Our reading
Neither running everything through the founder nor pushing decisions down is the better way to run a company; each only works if it fits that company’s own resources and values.
Mental modelTrade-offs

Their wordsEither can work. Both have tradeoffs and implications. If you try to import either philosophy wholesale, it will break in unexpected ways; if you try to mix and match, it will probably be an unfettered nightmare.
Our reading
A CEO cannot be a calibrated interviewer for every role, so insisting on interviewing every candidate makes hiring worse rather than better.
Mental modelCircle of competence

Their wordsCan you be calibrated as an interviewer on every single opening, for every role? My God, no, not even close.
Our reading
Reference checks are more informative than interviews, and if you had to pick one you should pick references.

Their wordsI’ve said many times that if I had to choose between interviews or references, I would pick references every time.
Our reading
A hiring loop should have few, well-calibrated interviewers rather than many, because extra interviewers add veto points instead of judgement.
Mental modelLess, but better

Recalls holdingI used to cast a much wider net, like I felt like people ought to get to interview anyone who was being hired over them.

Their words nowI’ve come to realize that having too many veto points in the system is dangerous and doesn’t actually add more value.
Our reading
Hire for a person’s unique strengths rather than for their lack of weaknesses, because a team exists to cover what any one person is not.
Mental modelSpecialise and trade

Their wordsyou want to hire people for their unique strengths, not their lack of weaknesses. If they’re strong where you need them to be strong, it’s okay if they aren’t equally superpowered at everything — that’s why we build teams, to supplement and balance each other out.
Our reading
There is no such thing as the best people; you are trying to hire the right people for this team at this stage.

Their wordsHere’s one small mental hack that makes a world of difference: remember that you are trying to hire the right people to join your team/org/company. Not the “best” people. The right people.

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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.