Over the Labor Day long weekend, a more than 1,000-word blog post by Paul Graham, co-founder of the startup accelerator Y Combinator, struck a chord across Silicon Valley. The essay, edited by the likes of Elon Musk and AirBnb (ABNB) CEO Brian Chesky, urges startup founders to embrace a more hands-on leadership style, which Graham refers to as “founder mode,” as opposed to “manage mode,” where founders engage with their companies only through direct reports.
Graham observed that many of Y Combinator’s most successful founders have something in common: at some point, they had been told to go “manager mode” and delegate tasks as their companies grew, a move that subsequently damaged their business. “There are things founders can do that managers can’t, and not doing them feels wrong to founders, because it is,” he wrote, adding that founders should instead remain involved in the details, spend time with employees and strike their own leadership path forward.
The essay received more than 20 million views on X over the weekend and gained widespread praise from tech executives. “We need founder-mode companies in all industries,” Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke tweeted in response to the blog post. Howard Lerman, the former CEO of tech startup Yext, noted the number of founders getting “absolutely fired up” by Graham’s essay. Jared Friedman, a Y Combinator partner, predicted Graham’s suggestions will become “one of the foundational pieces of startup advice that everyone knows.”
It’s no surprise that Graham’s message has resonated with founders “for whom the conventional wisdom hasn’t worked,” Risa Mish, a management professor at Cornell University’s Johnson College of Business, told Observer. “It comes down to something very basic, which is that one size never fits all,” she added.
Notable “founder mode” and “manager mode” CEOs
In his essay, Graham praised a recent talk given by Chesky, where the Airbnb co-founder recalled his own failure with manager mode and admiration for the likes of Steve Jobs, who’s famous for his hands-on approach. This isn’t the first time Chesky has made such comments. During an October podcast, the Airbnb head lauded the abilities of founders over professional managers and claimed that their passion, knowledge and control over startups are unmatched.
Musk, too, has been outspoken about his belief that CEOs should remain at the “front lines” of their companies. Nvidia (NVDA)’s Jensen Huang also maintains a hands-on leadership style, reportedly writing hundreds of emails to staff on a daily basis and regularly checking in on junior employees. And Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has long been involved in his company’s day-to-day operations. During a February podcast, he described a lack of belief in delegation as his most controversial leadership tip and urged founders to “make as many decisions and get involved in as many things as you can.”
Some tech leaders, however, have conceded that additional complications arise with founder mode. For starters, it can be difficult to maintain this manager approach after a company grows. Chesky himself admitted in October that one of the problems with founders is that “most of them cannot scale to run a giant company.”
And companies can’t be run by a founder in perpetuity, as “they don’t live forever,” according to the Airbnb head. After Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, for example, he was succeeded by Tim Cook, a professional manager. And Microsoft, currently headed by Satya Nadella, hasn’t been led by a founder for 25 years. Not all companies fit exclusively into founder or manager mode, according to Mish, who noted that startups led by managers still often embrace a hands-on and personalized culture within different divisions. “It may be as simple as the difference between a team that’s trying to create new things, versus a company focused on growing existing products and revenue sources,” she said.
In his essay, Graham said no books have been written about founder mode, while business schools “don’t know it exists.” Mish doesn’t necessarily agree. Nearly every business school has an entrepreneurship program focused on founding and growing companies, she said. “We deliberately talk about how you cannot have a ‘one size fits all’ approach to any aspect of a company, whether that is structure, whether that is culture, whether that is thinking about talent—there’s always more than one way.”
