Founder Mode, pettiness, and being pragmatic

Welcome back to the Z Fellows newsletter! Every Monday we share 3 ideas - to help you build companies, ship products, and create your life's work.

1: Founder Mode

For those curious about the recent flood of ‘Founder Mode’ posts.

Here’s a quick summary…

Overview:

• Two ways to run a company: founder mode and manager mode

• Manager mode is a well-known, taught in business schools

• Founder mode is less understood, but potentially more effective

Characteristics of manager mode:

• Treats parts of the org as black boxes

• Avoids “micromanaging”

• Often described as “hire good people and give them room to do their jobs”

• Can lead to hiring “professional fakers” who may damage the company

Characteristics of founder mode:

• Breaks the principle of CEO engaging only with direct reports

• May involve “skip-level” meetings as the norm

• Allows for more direct involvement across the organization

• Example: Steve Jobs’ annual retreat with 100 most important people at Apple

Paul Graham’s full essay

One-pager: Ben Lang

2: Alexis Ohanian on His Pettiest Moment

“2005, I was just out of college, first-time CEO of Reddit, I had raised $12,000 and was just trying to survive. Yahoo invited us to go to San Francisco to meet with their executive team.

So I show up, this executive sits us down and we go through the whole meeting. And I thought they had invited us to invest in us or buy us. Things are okay, then he goes, ‘Wait a second, how big is Reddit? How much traffic do you get a day?’

And I’m like, ‘We get around 1,000 users a day.’ You know, we were still small, we were six months old.

And he goes, “You are a rounding error compared to Yahoo. Why are you even here?”

The rest of the meeting doesn’t go well. I fly back home. I’m working out of my apartment, and next to my computer, I printed out ‘You are a rounding error.’ and put it up on my wall.

When Reddit passed Yahoo in traffic, this was like 4-5 years ago, I screenshotted it and told this story.”

Source: You Are A Rounding Error

3: Benjamin Franklin’s on Being Pragmatic

“Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” — Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was visiting France alongside John Adams. Both were in Paris networking for support for the American Revolution. They needed to get powerful people in France on their side.

John Adams woke up everyday first thing ready to work. Franklin did the opposite. He stayed up all night drinking with the French in the salon. He would roll out of bed at noon with a raging hangover.

John Adams couldn’t get over the hypocrisy.

How ironic that the guy behind the quote: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” — wasn’t following his own advice.

Franklin understood something that Adams did not.

Franklin wasn’t a hypocrite. Franklin was pragmatic. He was getting more business done for the American mission at 2am drinking with the French than Adams did at 8am in the office.

That’s the way Paris Politics worked.

Sometimes the right way is the wrong way. And sometimes the wrong way is the right way. Ignore all advice and rules. Just be pragmatic about the situation. There is on universal rule of behavior. Work from first principles. Where do you need to do Paris Politics in your own life?

Source: George Mack

Best of The Week

See you next Monday,

- Jay + The Z Fellows Team

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