[conductr]

It amazes me how much people seems to want someone like PG to just give them a single one size fits all solution to all their founder problems. It just will never exist for any particular person/company/situation. The trick is to be aware of the differing modes and when to apply them. And also, knowing these things can be useful when receiving external advise (investors, advisors, etc) as far as evaluating whether the advise would even work for your situation.

Where founder mode can be felt is when a founder has a "Vision" for their company, perhaps one that is difficult for others to see. They lean into the functional areas of their company that make strides into executing that vision and bringing it to reality. This is where they probably should exercise Founder mode. Other functions of the company may be support areas or lower impact areas towards realizing the vision, or just benefit from a particular domain expertise, this is where Manager mode likely comes into play. Although, I don't like the framing of "hire smart people and let them do good work" because it makes it sound like there are no goals or guardrails to what they are doing. The founder still needs to set expectations and monitor, and this even changes over time as next years goals for this team/individual will be different than this years.

In any case, hiring good people is most likely still going to be important. I think in most cases even a founder with a great vision needs to be challenged by their employees (Founder asks for X, but Engineer makes a case for Y). You don't want to squash collaboration and morale. Although, if you're lucky enough to be an exceptional Founder then your employees will tolerate it, it's probably not a good strategy to bank on though.