[gregskloot]

Fair point. Coming from the perspective of an early stage team (i.e. a startup), often the founder is the leader, and by necessity, he/she needs to manage the early team. That means working to develop some of the traits needed to manage AND lead effectively. Ideally, that founder will grow and be able to continue to lead/manage the team as it grows.

At most organizations I've been in, we'd struggle if the person in charge of a team (whether the CEO or a functional leader of say Marketing) was unable to both navigate and facilitate.

[im_down_w_otp]

Yeah, I can see that. There are about a million random reasons given for having co-founders for early-stage startups, but the only one that's ever made sense to me is to use two people to manage this split. Either co-founders or a single founder w/ the first IC hire.