I'm very much in line with the the gist of what's being said here. That said, there are a couple of discrepancies I think.
First, I don't think Founder Mode works as a name. He's saying all the founders are being told to grow their company the wrong way—the Manager Mode way. Chesky is unique in that he's ignoring them. Most Founders are doing Manager Mode not "Founder" Mode.
It's possible the name could work because it describes what Founders should be doing rather than what they're currently doing. It's meant to capture that people who start a company have a much different interest and emotional investment in the mission and company. This distinction is important (and has been told many times). I'm not sure that model holds so tight anymore. Being a tech founder today is a mainstream and maybe default path today for many, it's not a weird one that you'd have to be crazy about what you're trying to build in order to attempt. Founders are choosing founding first and searching for ideas second, and then pivoting those ideas as a best practice of founding.
Pick a random company that's sent you a recruitment email—look at what they say they do and then ask yourself how many people might be excited about that. Take an interview with a small one, you have a good chance you'll talk to a founder or someone quite high—this person frequently does not seem interested in this. Even without a successful product or an exit, the VC round is paying them a good salary to startup. A recent thought I've been having is there's a little more opportunity now to treat founding as a salary job, not really an equity play.
"As Airbnb grew, well-meaning people advised him that he had to run the company in a certain way for it to scale." The problematic norm to me in tech is the opting for organizing functionally (dividing into engineering, design, marketing. etc.) to scale. Related to this is the problem with PMs at most companies. If they're good ones, they should be leaders. Yet they don't own much nor manage anyone (they're ICs with no reports). And so Chesky removed them or guided them to something more specific like PMM.
First, I don't think Founder Mode works as a name. He's saying all the founders are being told to grow their company the wrong way—the Manager Mode way. Chesky is unique in that he's ignoring them. Most Founders are doing Manager Mode not "Founder" Mode.
It's possible the name could work because it describes what Founders should be doing rather than what they're currently doing. It's meant to capture that people who start a company have a much different interest and emotional investment in the mission and company. This distinction is important (and has been told many times). I'm not sure that model holds so tight anymore. Being a tech founder today is a mainstream and maybe default path today for many, it's not a weird one that you'd have to be crazy about what you're trying to build in order to attempt. Founders are choosing founding first and searching for ideas second, and then pivoting those ideas as a best practice of founding.
Pick a random company that's sent you a recruitment email—look at what they say they do and then ask yourself how many people might be excited about that. Take an interview with a small one, you have a good chance you'll talk to a founder or someone quite high—this person frequently does not seem interested in this. Even without a successful product or an exit, the VC round is paying them a good salary to startup. A recent thought I've been having is there's a little more opportunity now to treat founding as a salary job, not really an equity play.
"As Airbnb grew, well-meaning people advised him that he had to run the company in a certain way for it to scale." The problematic norm to me in tech is the opting for organizing functionally (dividing into engineering, design, marketing. etc.) to scale. Related to this is the problem with PMs at most companies. If they're good ones, they should be leaders. Yet they don't own much nor manage anyone (they're ICs with no reports). And so Chesky removed them or guided them to something more specific like PMM.