Future
Why Silicon Valley Is Abuzz Over ‘Founder Mode’
A debate is brewing among investors and entrepreneurs: Are hands-on founders, such as Steve Jobs and Brian Chesky of Airbnb, the key to start-up success?
“The less hands-on I was, the more I got sucked into problems,” Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s C.E.O., has said.Credit…J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times
How should a C.E.O. operate?
Silicon Valley has been abuzz in recent days over one topic in particular: How hands-on should founders be in their companies? In the framing of Brian Chesky, the Airbnb co-founder and C.E.O., and Paul Graham, the Y Combinator co-founder, it comes down to “founder mode” versus “manager mode.”
It’s not a new question — and it draws on longstanding examples like Steve Jobs — but it has taken on fresh significance as start-ups struggle with how to grow while keeping antsy investors happy.
Graham kicked off the latest discussion. “Till now most people even in Silicon Valley have implicitly assumed that scaling a start-up meant switching to manager mode,” he wrote. “But we can infer the existence of another mode from the dismay of founders who’ve tried it, and the success of their attempts to escape from it.”
He explained how the founder C.E.O. operates:
Graham took a shot at business schools for missing the trend, saying of the more hands-on founder mode, they “don’t know it exists.”
The prime example Graham cited was Chesky. The Airbnb boss shared his story at a recent Y Combinator event, and also discussed it on a podcast: “The less hands-on I was, the more I got sucked into problems. And by the time I got sucked into a problem, it was like 10 times as much work,” Chesky said on the podcast.
Instead, he decided: “I’m going to be involved in every single detail. And Airbnb is not going to do anything more than I can personally focus on.”
