Are you in Founder Mode? Or Manager Mode?

At a YC event earlier this month, Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, dropped some wisdom that not everyone in the room was ready for. He followed the old advice to “hire good people and give them room to do their jobs,” which turned out horribly for Airbnb.

So he set out to find a better way—Founder Mode.

Paul Graham then wrote a really great article—Founder Mode—that dives deeper into questions around what it means to be in Founder Mode vs. Manager Mode.

When I saw Graham’s article, it took me back to 2021, when we had a lot of VC-funded clients who were making the same exact mistakes he talks about.

They would hire smart people and get out of the way, as their VCs recommended, and the "smart people" drove their companies into the ground. I lost count of how many times that happened.

I found myself thinking founders are giving away control too fast, and that's hurting their businesses.

Warren Buffett is still running Berkshire Hathaway at 94, and his results speak for themselves.

Maybe the correct time to flip into "professional manager mode" is at the founder's retirement or death, as happened with Bezos. It is plain as day, however, that Amazon did a lot better while in founder mode.

At the time, I was the odd man out. But I firmly believed that…

Democracy is not a great way to run an agile business

There's one thing I’ve been repeating for years at my company—This is not a democracy.

I make the decisions. If I’m not in the room, someone makes them on my behalf. Everyone can voice their opinions, but there's always one person in the room making the decision. 

This is something Steve Jobs has talked about. (And Chesky studied Jobs quite a bit when trying to figure out what Founder Mode looks like.)

There's a video I love where Jobs talks about decision-making at Apple:

When Apple was in founder mode, there were no committees of any kind. You wouldn’t see groups of people coming together to vote on what gets done. There was one decision-maker. It wasn’t a group effort.

Now, with Apple in "manager mode," we can all see the results—innovation has stagnated for years. I still have an iPhone 12 because there’s no real reason to upgrade. The shift to manager mode is killing Apple.

We are looking for someone to blame. But not in the way you think.

When the wrong decisions are made, we look for someone to blame. That’s why one person should make the decision. When ONE person makes the wrong decision, we have one individual person who was wrong—not a whole team.

And this is important—not because we need someone to be pissed at, but because this is the only way we can have total accountability. It’s the only way the decision-maker can learn from their mistakes and fix things.

But if there's no accountability—no one learns, we move a lot slower, and no progress is made.

Here’s how we make decisions at DevSquad.

At DevSquad, there is one Decider and multiple Influencers at every meeting. The Influencers give their thoughts and opinions, but the Decider is the only one to make the final decision. 

Sometimes, a Decider will make a decision that goes against what the Influencers suggest. When they make the wrong decision, the Decider learns from the experience, and the Influencers learn to become better at voicing their opinions so they can have more impact next time.

Once the Decider has made a decision, our team will rally behind them and go with that vision, even if we disagree. 

And if the Decider makes a wrong decision, there is no “I told you so.” Because they have already taken full accountability, realized their mistake, and started to learn from it.

The best don't follow best practices.

Chesky is a great example of this. Best practices failed Airbnb, and Chesky said to hell with best practices and paved his own way.

People will always have an opinion on how things are “supposed to be done.” But when you look at the people who are actually successfully doing the thing—they’re often not doing exactly what best practices dictate.

Here’s a great example. Two weeks ago, I published an article about why hiring consulting agencies is a hack. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone on the Internet say you shouldn’t hire consultants or agencies but do everything in-house.

Now, there’s been a leaked document from Mr. Beast’s team with their secrets for success. And guess what one of those secrets is?

“Use consultants. Consultants are literally cheat codes.”

Sound familiar?

For the longest time, the wisdom was to do everything in-house. And I was one of the few people advocating for using consultants publicly. But now that Mr. Beast agrees, the thoughts around this “best practice” of hiring in-house will likely begin to shift.

So like Chesky, I’m saying to hell with “best practices” that are only best practices because that’s how things have always been done (not because they actually work).

As Rebel Founders, we need to stand in our beliefs and make the decisions we know are right for our business.

TL;DR: To maintain agility and maximize business impact, resist the premature shift to professional manager mode. Preferably, continue operating in Founder mode until you die, like Steve Jobs and Warren Buffet.

Understand that the most successful often defy "best practices." Stand firm in your convictions rather than conforming to conventional wisdom.

To your rebel journey,