[debit-freak]

To equity-holders, it's code for the obsession that makes founders work extra-hard to please the financiers. To employees, it's code for being an abusive asshole.

FWIW, I would never describe any of the (successful, with exits and now-successful brands) founders I worked for this way. It's disgusting.

It's been a long, long time since pg had to answer to employees. He clearly no longer understands the current labor market, nor what it implies about actual workplace conditions.

EDIT: To be clear, "obsessive" attention to detail is still what makes products work coherently. It's the rhetoric that an individual, even a "founder" taking on mountains of potential value, should (or even can) shoulder and internalize this, without breaking, that is inherently wrong.

[notahacker]

I think the most damning comment of all on "founder mode" came not from the critics but from a LinkedIn post giving Brian Chesky apparently sincere praise for purportedly examplifying it. Apparently AirBNB had completely screwed up customer support responses to a fellow founder to the extent they'd blocked her, but as she was a member of the YC alumni network, a quick message and Brian resolved her in a few minutes, at the weekend. Who needs process or executive decision making at lower levels when you have "founder mode"?!

Customer support mistakes are unavoidable in large companies and AirBNB definitely isn't the worst offender in that regard, but I can't really imagine a bigger example of dysfunction in a B2C business than customer support resolution being the CEO needing to respond to personal messages of customers well connected enough to reach him via private channels. But now customer support failure is actually something to aspire to, provided it involves the important virtue of CEOs being busy at weekends.

[debit-freak]

The behavior you've described seems deeply dysfunctional but for reasons that are entirely separate from how the term "founder mode" has gained a life of its own. "Founder mode" is being weaponized to critique people for entering a market much more competitive and dry of opportunity than it was thirty years ago Without acknowledging any change in the market the article at hand seems to be just a person belching complaints without anything to say.

[notahacker]

Comparisons with the big internet successes of 25-30 years ago are pretty wild anyway, on the basis that Google is pretty much the poster child for tech founders letting a professional manager install a hierarchy to do the running-big-company stuff, and Pierre Omidyar not only left day to day management as soon as eBay floated but also made a point of moving out the Valley and portraying himself as a philanthropist rather than a business leader.

The original essay felt more like scrabbling around for a reason why founders felt their companies were less effective with more levels of hierarchy whilst somehow missing the essential truth that managing a team of 1000 is harder than managing a team of 15 no matter how you do it. I'm just here for all the wild takes on founder greatness and founder obligation that came with it!