Everyone knows what a CEO does. And if you ask a CTO or a Head of Product what their job is, you'll get a solid answer. When you ask a founder, you'll often get a story about how the company began.

That story is real and useful. But it isn't a job.

Founder is a title. It tells the world where a company came from. The hard work. The first customer. The thing you built when nobody else believed it would work. It belongs on a conference badge, in a pitch, on the company's about page. It points outward, at the people who weren't there.

Inside the company, it becomes less and less useful as your business grows.

A role has edges. A remit. Decisions it owns and decisions it doesn't. A point where it stops and someone else's begins. "Founder" has none of that. It expands to fill whatever space you give it. And when your job is everything, it is also nothing in particular. You become the place every decision goes to wait.

I cite Jo Freeman's The Tyranny of Structurelessness all the time. In 1970, she first made an argument about activist groups that lands just as hard on a startup in 2026. Refusing to define structure doesn't remove power; it hides it. Ever known a company that claims it has a "flat hierarchy"? They mean it, but a group that calls itself structureless still has structure. It is just less visible.

Treating the founder title as a role is the same trap. The power doesn't disappear because you never named it. It goes underground. And from there it does three quiet kinds of damage. You can't be held accountable because no one can say what you were responsible for. You can't delegate, because there's no remit to hand on. You can't get replaced in any single function, because you never named the function to begin with.

I get it. When you found a business, you do everything, because at the start, there's no one else to do it. That's not the problem. The problem is staying there. Treating "Founder" as your answer to "what do you do here?" long after the company needed you to do something more specific.

Naming your real role doesn't shrink the founding story. It protects it. It brings the power into the light, where other people can see it, share it, and carry it. It's how a company becomes something that outlasts the person who started it.

So keep the title. You earned it. Just don't mistake it for the job.

~ Lachlan

What’s been happening?

The leadership budget you haven't spent this financial year? Here's a good use for it.

We offer three EOFY coaching packages for three different kinds of engineering and technical leaders — executive, engineering manager/tech lead, and small-group cohort. Coaches who are IECL certified and have actually led engineering teams.

Book before 30 June for 15% off. Start when you're ready.

See https://blackmill.co/coaching for details and book a chat at https://meet.blackmill.co/blackmill/30min

STARTUP BALL 4v4 Tournament

What an incredible morning. Lachlan’s team met courtside, won their first game, drew their second, and lost their third. Then got to cheer on the talent in the finals. We met so many people. A truly great way to wrap up our trip to Sunrise, by meeting many of the same people in a space where they weren’t pitching. This was a place to express other passions and drive without needing to perform, except on the court. Awesome.

What are we reading?

• Trust, Ownership, Feedback, and Excellence – Tom Mango on why you need more than smart, capable people for a great team. You need a way of working together that keeps your team improving.
• Cognitive Surrender – Addy Osmani discusses the differences between cognitive offloading and cognitive surrender, why developers are particularly susceptible, and what we can do about it.
• The Machine That Does Not Dream: A Psychoanalytic Reflection – Mette Charis Buchman examines AI and our relationship to it from a psychoanalytic perspective.

• At the limits of thought – David C Krakauer questions the future of science.

  Some of these pieces required serious heavy lifting for us to come to grips with, so we’ll stop at four this time. - Change management is not about the content; it’s about the context – Elle writes how new systems and org charts don't change an organisation, people do. A quick piece on leading change by managing the group's anxious mood, not just the rollout: why frameworks only get you so far, and why over-communicating across different channels matters more than the perfect announcement.

What are we cooking?

Slow Cooker Breakfast Burritos

We’re rebels, so we actually made this one for dinner. Who is getting up at 2am to start cooking a six hour breakfast?!

Ingredients

• 400g can of black beans, rinsed and drained
• 450g firm tofu, crumbled
• ¼ cup chopped scallions
• 1 green pepper, finely chopped
• 1 cup salsa
• 1/2 cup water
• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
• ¼ teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• 3 cups spinach leaves
• 8 whole-wheat tortillas
• Sliced Avocado, Shredded Cheese, Salsa, For Topping

Instructions

1. Place the black beans, crumbled tofu (no need to press beforehand), scallions, green pepper, salsa, water, turmeric, cumin, chilli powder, paprika and a generous pinch of salt and pepper in the slow cooker and cook for 6 hours on low.
2. When ready to serve, stir in the spinach until just wilted.
3. Using a slotted spoon to remove as much extra liquid as possible, place a scoop in the centre of a burrito, top with any optional toppings and roll up!
4. Serve with extra salsa, hot sauce or anything else you like with your breakfast burritos!

And we’re out

Thank you for showing an interest in our newsletter, and we hope that you enjoyed the read. Feel free to contact us if you have any feedback, a burning question, or just a recipe that you would like to share.

Until next time, keep learning!

Everyone at Blackmill