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by romeros 816 days ago
Yes, but the VCs trust you to a large extent and they can't delve into the nitty-gritty of daily operations. If they do they will develop a bad reputation.

Your boss's job is to oversee the minutiae of your day-to-day activities. Like in most workplaces, you can't choose to just chill for a few days, work only at night, or choose to avoid meetings for a few days, etc.

You will have a level autonomy and the ability to change directions/features, etc. that you cannot have working for others.

1 comments

A good manager is going to trust you to a large extent and not delve into the nitty-gritty of daily operations. With typical reporting loads in knowledge industries, they can’t - a manager with 10 reports realistically has 1-2 hours/week to spend on their projects once all the team overhead is taken care of.

My reports absolutely can chill for a couple days, work only at night, or skip meetings. My job is to get them promoted, which can’t happen until they land projects that demonstrate business impact.

But what a report can't do is change the direction of a company or org leadership that is making bad decisions that lead to impossible demands governed by politics as ultra short-termism. Having the freedom to fail any way I want, but not be empowered to succeed, is a uniquely "employee" problem.
Sure, but there are many ways that VCs can force companies into incentive structures that put them in a failing position. If you include stupid executives and poor long-term decisions in the corporate model, you also have to include stupid VCs or board members and poor long-term decisions in the startup model.