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Why "founder mode" is a rebranding for micromanaging, top-down leaders

We’ve all been following the drama over the past few months: product management has been in the eye of the storm, beginning with Airbnb CEO introducing his new playbook without PMs, and culminating with a Paul Graham essay that glorifies this approach as the new “founder mode” paradigm, a valid alternative to “skillful liars” managers.

My recent post on the topic questioning the approach received polarized reactions, with PMs and company leaders unsurprisingly in favour of more empowerment, and a few founders (the minority, to be fair) raising more or less legitimate objections. If you are a founder, that’s harder though, because it requires empowering teams in doing there job, and putting in place ways of working that enable people to make those difficult decisions and fix those problems. As Graham points out, every company obviously starts in founder mode, and I have tons of respect for entrepreneurs like Chesky who are able to change an entire industry and impact millions of people.

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