We need to talk about 'founder mode'

Always fun to have a new Paul Graham essay to read and think about. Founder Mode is changing things, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

S/O Ph4se0n3 for the awesome edit 🙏

[smarimc]

It's not a cliffnote unless it comes from the cliff region of France. Otherwise it's just sparkling footer commentary.

[myutwo]

Me when I’m in a “make the most stank ugly ass website of all time” contest and my competition is Paul Graham: 🗿

[MachineYearning]

"Test driven development is a skill that qualifies you out of ever working near me" is such a wild thing to say. You realize that people can have a skill that they don't need to apply in every context? And putting it in the same category as "lying as a skill" just makes you sound needlessly hyperbolic. I get that exaggerating for content and engagement is a thing, but doesn't that just put you in the category of "liar as a skill"?

[JohnVandivier]

Some of the most successful founders I know, including YC founders like Sam Altman, give the exact opposite advice: if you aren’t passionate find something you are passionate about

I can’t buy this “do what you hate” take

[orterves]

You see, you're supposed to hire good people and let them do their jobs. What these people did is hire bad managers and let them waste time and money. It's apparently a subtle difference requiring a whole new mindset to get past

[SmithHayward]

I feel like we need Guilfoyle Mode... make it a thing people

[robmorgan]

My company failed because of most reasons discussed here. Manager mode pressure. Gaslighting. Engineers hiding. Saying things were measured tested and in spec but not actually properly characterized managerial insecurities... founder mode 100%. I raised 11M in total, personally built the prototype, and shipped a broken product on time and spent 6 months and 1M to find and fix a bug in a network stack that could have been found had the team spent 1 entire day running the test I ordered and not lied to my face about the results because it would have unnecessarily wasted a whole day of dev due to taking servers offline to reconfigure them to match production (required physical access and could only happen when the network cards approached max throughput causing the application's buffer to unnecessarily reallocate...actual cause was premature buffer size optimization for minimum server latency... ie buffer too small app optimized for conditions not see during normal operating conditions... dev servers couldnt push packets as fast as several $100k router unless you installed and configured a 100k server for real time operation... ie the application's standard operating conditions)... happened 8yrs ago and I'm still not over it. I'm furious.

[AndrewEddie]

Good to know that I'll never get hired by Theo because I'm good at teaching teams how to do improve software with TDD :)

Great talk though. Really enjoyed it. On the issue of simpler communication, I have worked with a LOT of people where English is their second language. Over the years, I've tuned my language to be much simpler and succinct in order to make it easier of people translating to their native language in their heads. Let me tell you that is hard for an Aussie because we use so much slang in every-day conversation (so much so, that we've almost forgotten how to speak without it).

[karlhansen]

First comment Theo, stumbled across your channel about a month ago. This video and commentary are spot-on. I've been involved with a half-dozen startups with the gamut of success, but never participated much on the equity side due to that "talk to you, promise you the moon, then rug-pull when they see personal gain for themselves." Acrobat Forms? I created the first scripting package in Acrobat 3. The creators of that startup designed the company around my tech. I also told Warnock they should sell advert space on the splash screen for Acro Reader revenue. When Adobe showed interest in our products and servicez, I was shown the door. Then they sat on their million and sold no more services. Adobe shut it down.

Lots of other examples. I'm a serial patenter and idea creator. You are the first person with the tech background and startup experience to air out what I have seen again and again.

Congrats on the clarity and, frankly, bluntness of this video.

And I WILL take you up on the Twitter two sentence DM. But it may be in a couple weeks. Neck deep in projects and bill paying and life crises and .... :)

[Viviko]

This is why I love Theo. Don’t always agree with but love that he is also a founder and not just an employee type.

[Rohinthas]

It's a really good video but I think the examples given mix up two things. If you dont own the thing you are not a founder and you are not in founder mode, you are in self-exploitation-mode. Sure, going the extra-mile this hard is a good indicator that you might make a great founder, but unless you actually own the thing you are not in founder mode. Saying it now because this is 100% how this term will be twisted by corporate/consultant/VC-speak (if it catches on)

[pencilcheck]

Poor Theo, you do know Y combinator is also an investor right? They have different profit motive than other VCs because their strategy isn’t big rounds, but still similar. The motive of other founders sharing and talking is cool, but most successful founders are very cutthroat and will not really help others since they rather others help them instead. Oh wait, Theo is also an investor, he is in investor mode no wonder some part of video sounds off to me.

[Rohinthas]

Huh, I usually dont care about founder/managerial stuff, but what you said about doing the things you avoid and hire for things you love is actually pretty profound. Gotta think that over a couple of times, because it feels like it applies beyond hiring decisions...

[vasnook]

Well... there is clearly some great advice in here... but a flag for me is that, when I think of the worst, most toxic bosses I've ever had... I think if they saw your video they would think "yeah; I was right about this; everyone else was wrong!" It is really easy to argue for the grindcore micromanagement -- it's romantic, and it's self-aggrandizing for the individuals with the most hard-power in an organization. But you only devote a few passing words to that footnote [3] about the cautionary tale. A good discourse on founder mode would be about how to find a middle path.

Another flag is when you give the example of the intern with founder mindset... why not call the thing "intern mode" then? and say "founders should adopt more of an intern mindset"? You could make the argument just as well -- the fact that you take sales calls and value support, this is the founder doing the grunt work, isn't it? so then it's not founder mode at all. You're simply selecting good qualities and assigning them to the most privileged social category in the system. It makes sense if your audience is a bunch of aspiring founders, but then you are playing into their biases and making it more likely that they will become the kinds of CEOs who the departments need protection from.

[daveh]

PG is survivor bias in action. He has literally no idea what makes for success - he was in the right place at the right time. So what if he writes nicely.

[letopizdetz]

every couple of years they come up with a new term for an old concept and people use it like little kids learning new slang.

[flipperiflop]

This is an amazing video - Might disagree with some of your other takes, but this one here is golden. Would love to hear more of your takes about running a company and being a founder. What better way to bring the future of people knowing about "founder-mode" than to talk about it!

[SethWilson]

I’m legally blind, and a few months back I encountered a similar bug, and I found them similarly responsive. Maybe it was the same guy!

[noelguiavieira]

Oh man, "Those who can build, build. Those who can't build, invest." Gotta make a t-shirt out of that! 😂

[xXMockapapellaXx]

Thank you for posting about this Theo (as well as the YC/VC rant/discussion on your other channel). I really enjoy this kind of content :)