To Lead, Manage, or Both?
Last week, Paul Graham’s essay “Founder Mode” sparked a lot of discussion in news. In it, Graham over simplifies a key distinction between how founders and professional managers run companies. The conventional wisdom of “hire good people and give them room to do their jobs” sounds great, but Graham points out that’s not how visionary founders — like Steve Jobs and Brian Chesky, leaded their companies to reinvent smartphones and B&B from crazy to great. Instead of delegating everything, these founders stayed hands-on, making timely judgment calls on crucial details. Some might call it “micromanaging”. But only because of their leadership, Apple & Airbnb turned “crazy” ideas into big businesses against all odds. Which one is right is a wrong question. When to take which approach is a better one.
021, 10x or Both?
Graham’s “Founder Mode” is a powerful mental model for ambitious founders striving to take their startups from Zero to One (021) against all challenges. But, like any leadership principle, it’s not a silver bullet. Real life is full of nuance and exceptions. Don’t bring the hammer to a gun fight. There is no limitation how many tools on your belt. Founders will definitely face much more different challenges than everyone. There always is a better way than treating them all like a nail. So founders must learn how to judge when to let their lieutenants to scale up 10x, and when to lead them to charge into a new frontier & learn. So, what is a question high potential founders never ask others?
What’s the Next Big AI Startup Idea in 3 Years?
tl;dr: Nobody knows. If it were obvious, someone would’ve already nailed it. But sooner or later, some “lucky” founder will crack it at just the right time. Think about Google, Facebook, and ChatGPT — now it’s easy to see their impact, but back then, they weren’t so obvious. By the time everyone else see it, it’s already too late. Remember: the next Google will not be searching.
“I’m not going to answer it because I think you should never take this kind of advice about what startup to start ever from anyone. um I think by the time there’s something that is like the kind of thing that’s obvious enough that me or somebody else will sit up here and say it. It’s probably like not that great of a startup idea. And I totally understand the impulse and I remember when I was just like asking people like what startup should I start um but I I think like one of the most important things I believe about having an impactful career is you have to chart your own course if the thing that you’re thinking about is something that someone else is going to do anyway or more likely something that a lot of people are going to do anyway um you should be like somewhat skeptical of that. And I think a really good muscle to build is coming up with the ideas that are not the obvious ones to say so.” — The Possibilities of AI [Entire Talk] — Sam Altman (OpenAI), May 2024.
