Why Everyone in Tech Is Talking About Founder Mode

Graham said operating in “manager mode” rather than “founder mode” is anathema to businesses.

“This often means hiring professional imposters and letting them drive the company into bankruptcy,” he writes.

A perfect example of a tech titan who embraces founder mode is Nvidia co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang, who has 60 direct reports and still eats in the company cafeteria.

Graham attributed the idea and much of the blog’s argument to Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky. At a recent Y Combinator event, Chesky argued that conventional advice on building and growing a startup is flawed. He said, as he has before, that outside investors and managers simply don’t have the insights that founders have. He added that dividing companies into tiers of organizational charts, isolating founders from anyone but their direct reports, often kills the company.

While disparaging the way managers operate may come as a shock to management consultants, Graham’s piece is consistent with Silicon Valley’s modus operandi. Tech culture has always revered founders and lean teams. Venture capitalists try to outdo each other in funding rounds to appear the most “founder-friendly”—investors who won’t interfere much. Would-be founders dream of the day when they can break away from the monotony of Big Tech and launch their own Next Big Thing, unfettered by bureaucracy.

And it’s a long weekend when not much else is happening online. The internet is hungry for trendy nomenclature, dividing people into camps, and the chance to garner likes from a viral post.

The founders of “Gaslit”

Chesky’s speech struck another chord with founders in the room, and then with Graham’s online readers. The Airbnb executive said founders are constantly “manipulated” — first by outside voices telling them to run the company like managers, and then by employees who don’t like their manager’s way of doing things.

Chesky is Airbnb’s only remaining co-founder, and while much of his leadership has been lauded — he empathetically led a major round of pandemic-era layoffs and tried to refocus the hospitality giant — the stock has fallen more than 15% since its 2020 IPO.

There are also notable exceptions to the positive founding mode: Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes were both founders who operated with autonomy, then in ignominy.

On the other hand, Satya Nadella and Tim Cook are both outside managers with a track record of successfully turning around their companies – in both cases, building on the legacy of strong founders.

It’s time for Thinkfluencers to shine

Graham’s essay took Chesky’s speech out of the YC room and into the rest of the world, where it exploded online.

For better or worse, Founder Mode has gone viral in the tech corner of X, prompting aspiring influencers, comedians, and founders to weigh in.

Baron Davis, a basketball star turned investor, compared being a founder to being an athlete.

Another investor was quick to offer one of the tastiest examples of founder mode: Costco’s deal of the century, which withstood inflation thanks to a co-founder’s clear instructions to its CEO: “If you raise that damn hot dog, I’ll kill you.”

A tech newsletter writer anticipated what meeting a tech-savvy friend would be like this week.

Some users have sounded the alarm about the future of Tech Discourse, now that Founders Mode is officially a success.

Custom domains have been purchased.

And of course, unofficial products are already available.