I’ve worked with two coaches over the past six years, and they’ve helped me examine my own tendencies as a leader. There are many ways I think you could describe me as a “typical” founder: driven, detail-oriented, and uncomfortable with rules, processes, and hierarchy.
Thus, when Paul Graham published his final article, “Founder’s Position“I came out, and I was ready to like it. Even the speech that Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky gave, which he referenced, is a speech I had heard at an event in the past, so again, the stage was set for me to like it.
I didn’t like that. In my opinion, one of the Y Combinator founders presented a false binary in the post, and I felt that was counterproductive to the conversation about the role founders play.
I love founders, and I think we bring something special to the table. We have the DNA that says “the status quo isn’t good enough” and the willingness to take pain to make things better. Graham’s post points to a trait I definitely have: not managing through my direct managers, but instead maintaining deep relationships with great people across the company. When I want to know something, I go straight to the source. Passing information up and down the chain of command leads to poor results.
Management under scrutiny
The problem I have with this post isn’t what it says about founders (which is primarily good), but what it says about managers (which is primarily bad). This line in particular is particularly damaging: “CEOs, as a class, include some of the world’s most skilled liars.”
Graham later explains that he is talking about the tendency of these executives to “act upward”—or get the result you want from your boss. To describe this as “lying” is unfair at best. People at every level of the organization are trained to be Good at managementBecause it is important to your personal success to have a boss who shares your perspective on whatever you are working on. In upper management, you don’t need to be to lieYou work harder to prove your hard-earned point, free up budget, and do whatever it takes to move the ball forward. And that’s exactly what you get paid to do.
But let’s ignore that point for a moment. The fundamental problem with this post is that it creates a false dichotomy between managers and founders. Founders have this innate magic, while managers are just power-hungry bureaucrats.
Indispensable Senior Executives
I have now hired some experienced executives on my team. I am fully aware that they have different innate tendencies than I do. I do not think I would be good at any executive level job (except the one I hold).
But I hired these people because they actually have incredibly important skills, experience, and knowledge. I don’t haveThis is something that almost no founder has.
Things like: How do you build a global sales force that consistently hits targets, create a compensation system that scales with thousands of employees around the world, and get a team of hundreds of engineers and product people to build a consistent, integrated product experience.
Why would any founder know how to do these things? Generally, founders are people who are very close to the problems, and these problems are often dealt with “closer to the metal.” Not in the executive leadership ranks.
It turns out there are important things to know about how to do these hard things. I don’t know many companies that have had tremendous success and never brought in senior executives to help them scale. It’s just part of the process.
What Startup Founders Should Do
There are two things that absolutely establish He should Do it, though.
First, startups need to hire executives with integrity, people with good human qualities. Startup culture is often strong, but it’s also emerging. Senior leaders have the opportunity to change that culture when they join the company, and you need to hire people who can change that culture in positive ways, in ways that are consistent with how you want the company to grow.
Second, they need to create an executive team dynamic that gets the best out of everyone. The best teams are diverse, and a team full of founders can be a nightmare. It’s often very difficult to cohere a group of senior leaders if you’ve never managed people at that level before, but it is possible. This is where I spend a lot of my time and attention, and where my coach is invaluable.
If you’re a founder and you feel like your executives are taking advantage of you, I’d ask you two questions:
1. Have you hired the right people? Not all executives are the same.
2. Do you do? Your job Who molded these amazing leaders into a world-class team?
I’ve found that often throughout my journey as a founder, the best way to identify the source of the problem is to look in the mirror.
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