Once more, less obliquely
Wherein we dive deeper into Founder mode, vibe coding, and my latest favorites.
Here’s the agenda: expanded thoughts on leadership, links and ideas on building, and a very concise enumeration of what I’m enjoying lately.
As ever, thanks for reading!
A parable of adventurers asked, “what if Lichtenberg wrote about Founder Mode?” I think it succeeds at capturing both the shortcomings of the Founder Mode mind space and telling a story in the style of the Waste Books. That is, obliquely and concisely. On the other hand, it’s about ten times longer than most of the passages in the Waste Books.
Through that style, I was trying to say: - We can go further together than we can alone. Founder Mode presumes we go together, but only where the mythical Founder takes us. - A cohesive leadership team beats a mythical Founder. If the Founder feels the need to get hands-on with part of the organization that they’ve already hired a leader for, it means the Founder or said leader should fix their collaboration.
I think there’s a connection between Founder Mode and explore/expand/exploit. During the explore phase, the Founder is necessarily hands-on, lest there won’t be an expand or exploit phase. Of course, folks drawn to capital-F Founder ideas are nostalgic and eager to return to these days.
But, that’s a different kind of Founder than was invoked in Graham’s essay. That Founder, one who finds themselves in the expand and exploit phases, should maintain the whole system (market, product, company) in their head and steer the leadership team they’ve assembled in the right direction. If the organization somehow resists course correction, the Founder should work on that through the leadership structure they created, not by micromanaging.
Were it distilled down to a Waste Book-esque aphorism, The Mythical Man Month would say you can’t make a baby in one month with nine women. If I were to try to compress my criticism of Founder Mode to one line, it would be something like “what got us here can’t get us there”. But if you’d like the longer version, I’m happy to attempt to write The Mythical Founder Mode Month. 😉
Plenty of reflections on building with LLMs lately: on vibe coding, workflows for the same, and how the vibe coding sausage is made.
Every job search is the act of looking for new and interesting collaborators.
I’m (still) envious of Mikkel Malmberg’s work:
Mikkel Malmberg makes macOS apps “for the connoisseurs,” creates lots of little web things, and has a pretty delightful YouTube channel where he shares his creation process. While you’re there, scroll to the very bottom of his webpage for a surprise.
🔊 listening: lots of jazz duo & trios, Dio, and Motörhead. 🤘
📺 watching: Paradise (S1), Drive to Survive (S7), Severance (S2), White Lotus (S3).
❓Are LLMs and AI making it easier or harder for you to collaborate with your teammates?
