[intalentive]

This mirrors the military doctrine of "mission tactics" which entrusts subordinates with wide latitude in executing orders. But it requires a high degree of alignment and competence, which explains why YC focuses on founders over product or idea.

This makes sense in a dynamic environment with sensitive local conditions and "network lag" in the chain of command. But in more static or settled market environments it may be wiser (for investors) to focus elsewhere and restrict founder autonomy. We see this pretty commonly with successful founders who get "phased out" and replaced with more experienced managers.

I wonder how much this sort of "distributed decision-making" has been formalized and studied.

[Ozzie_osman]

I'm a huge fan of Mission Command. If you want to read more, I'd recommend the Army's official doc on it: https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN34403-ADP_6-... (it's 110 pages but you really only need to read Chapter 1).

This was eye-opening. I used to think militaries were completely centralized and top-down, but a friend who was an officer explained this to me and pointed me to the literature. It was fascinating and educating to understand the principles behind Mission Command being successful as a method (competence, mutual trust, shared understanding, etc).

[chinathrow]

> Commanders, staffs, and subordinates ensure their decisions and actions comply with applicable U.S., international, and, in some cases, host-nation laws and regulations. Commanders at all levels ensure their Soldiers operate in accordance with the Army Ethic, the law of war, and the rules of engagement. (See FM 27-10 for a discussion of the law of war.)

Not sure this was followed very recently.

[furyg3]

It isn't very complicated from a military law perspective. The chain of command (following orders) has a lot more weight on it than a given solder's interpretation of military, constitutional, or international law.

If you believe you are being a given an order that is illegal and refuse, you are essentially putting your head on the chopping block and hoping that a superior officer (who outranks the one giving you the order) later agrees with you. Recent events have involved the commander in chief issuing the orders directly, which means the 'appealing to a higher authority' exit is closed and barred shut for a solider refusing to follow orders.

That doesn't mean a soldier isn't morally obligated to refuse an unlawful / immoral order, just that they will also have to pay a price for keeping their conscience (maybe a future president will give them a pardon?). The inverse is also true, soliders who knowingly follow certain orders (war crimes) are likely to be punished if their side loses, they are captured, or the future decides their actions were indefensible.

A punishment for ignoring a command like "execute those POWs!" has a good chance of being overruled, but may not be. However an order to invade Canada from the President, even if there will be civilian casualties, must be followed. If the President's bosses (Congress/Judiciary) disagree with that order they have recourse.

Unfortunately the general trend which continues is for Congress to delegate their war making powers to the President without review, and for the Supreme Court to give extraordinary legal leeway when it comes to the legality of Presidential actions.

[Hendrikto]

> I used to think militaries were completely centralized and top-down

It is my understanding that the Russians do it that way, which does not seem to work out great for them.

[ahartmetz]

Russia seems to start every war with bad commanders in a bad command structure, then slowly fix... nah scratch that - improve it.

[aussieguy1234]

The YPG, an armed anarchist military group, defeated Islamic State in North East Syria and more or less founded their own country without a traditional military command structure. Instead they had loosely coordinated teams.

[sillyfluke]

And how do you suppose IS gained all its territory in the first place? fyi the current president of Syria is ex-Al-Qaeda/el-Nusra/HTS.

[notpushkin]

For those outside the US: https://web.archive.org/web/20250202000359/https://armypubs....

[baxtr]

There is a good book on that subject by Stephen Bungay called "The Art of Action". He explains the concept of Auftragstaktik. Great book, although a bit hard to read.

[Grosvenor]

There's also Franz Osinga's book Scince, strategy, and war, which covers John Boyd's work in detail.

[baxtr]

I think OODA is fundamentally different to Auftragstaktik.

Auftragstaktik describes a clear purpose / intent. Like: capture the bridge (but: we don’t care how you do it since we can’t foresee specific circumstances)

OODA describes a process of decision making.

So, Auftragstaktik answers who decides what and why.

OODA answers how decisions are made and updated over time.

They’re complementary but different.

[MaysonL]

John Boyd, describer of the “OODA” loop: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

[kjkjadksj]

If it focused on founders over product or idea you’d see some actual heterogeneity in the YC set. It has been a few months since I last skimmed the startup lists but it seemed like 95% were LLM for X companies.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Commander's intent is part of the five paragraph order

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_paragraph_order

[vasco]

"Nelsonic doctrine", for whoever wants to google this concept.

> In war the first principle is to disobey orders. Any fool can obey an order. He ought to have gone on, had he the slightest Nelsonic temperament in him.