[senko]

Yeah I don't mean to say founders, CEOs, etc, should ignore problems when they see one (let's assume they correctly identify the problem, ie 100% right): quite the opposite!

But there's a (slower, harder?) way to right the ship and make the team better, and (quicker, easier?) way to swoop in like a Marvel Avenger and break everything (and everyone) in the process.

I feel Founder Mode should in theory be the former, but is in fact excuse for many to do the latter (I've no evidence for this, just what it looks like to me).

[phillryu]

Ah ok yeah I see where you're coming from there. It's kind of like the question of did Steve Jobs need to be an asshole to be as successful as he was. And it can be tempting to think that they are intrinsically linked, but I also like to believe there is a world where he grew more on the empathy side but was still able to lead Apple perhaps even better.

[ethbr1]

There's also the time/focus limitation.

A CEO/founder can be the most brilliant person in a company, and still not be as well informed about a specific aspect as someone else, simply because they don't have time with their other competing responsibilities.

So the allure of parachuting in and fixing a problem also comes with understanding the limitations that your brief on the situation was by summarized Powerpoint.

Which is one thing that's been said about old Microsoft era Gates -- he simply worked that much harder and faster to be able to do it effectively.