Founder Mode Is Systems Thinking

Paul Graham’s essay on “Founder Mode” resonated with me, especially an aversion to what he describes as “manager mode”, or at least a scepticism about treating swathes of an organisation as a black box. I definitely recognise the feeling that he’s talking about.

He says “we still know so little about founder mode”. I can’t help but wonder though, whether what he’s describing is mostly systems thinking. Founders know their businesses (and staff) so well that they have the insight to know where the controlling levers are, which a professional manager does not. Even more importantly, they also have the clout and influence to pull them.

As mentioned in the essay, how did Steve Jobs know who the 100 most important people at Apple were, if this considerably bypassed the org chart? They’re the levers he identified.

Sometimes the margins are fine, and you can’t afford to make a mistake and iterate. In such a situation, a founder knows the levers they can pull, where-ever in the business they are, and is capable of modelling the likely outcome of pulling those levers to increase the likelihood of success.

I’m all for leaning into that.