Founder Mode unpacked
What Brian Chesky really means by Founder Mode and why the truth matters
You might remember Paul Graham’s blog post about Founder Mode. It lit the start up world on fire and Founder Mode took a life of its own. Well, in this conversation with Simon Sinek, Brian Chesky sets the record straight about what he meant about Founder Mode:
“[Paul wrote there are] two modes running a company, one with a manager mindset, one's a founder mindset. I never coined it that. But I basically had a few principles…
As a leader… 1) you can't support [people] and help them if you aren't on the battlefield with them. And… 2) [you need to get] the entire company to row in the same direction. If I have a thousand people, I'd rather a thousand people in one ship than a thousand people in a thousand little boats going in different directions.”
- The Secret Art of Micromanagement with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, 11 Feb 2025
What is Founder Mode
If you listen to the full statement, here is what Founder Mode really means: as a founder, you should be in the details - but not all the details, just the right details. (Your head would explore you if you have to be in all the details!) And being in the details doesn't mean you tell people what to do, and you don’t do their work for them. You partner with then and work through problems together.
You start at a bird’s eye, work your way down through the trees and bushes to find the grass that needs attention. Then work with the team on the grass level, together.
In B-school they teach you general management, that is unlike the 70s type of helicopter management (never getting into the details), and is unlike micromanagement (telling people how to do their job) - mostly because being too high means you don’t understand how the company works, and if you are too sucked into the day to day then you lose sight of the big picture. Simples.
There is a middle ground. Good managers do something that goes along these lines:
identify the (right) details: whether it is RevOps or some other Ops, teams have the day-to-day monitoring systems to spot if a KPI is not performing as needed, or in a surprising way - which details should a founder be spending time on?
analyse the problem: teams also have the quantitative skills (SQL, modelling etc) and qualitative skills (internal relationships, good probing etc) to find the root case of performance - what is the Problem, how big is it, and why is it happening?
propose relevant solutions: pulling cross-functional expertise, BizOps can come up with the short-term patch and the long-term sustainable solution - what kind of resources should we deploy and when?
So it turns out…
Founder Mode is just… good general management!
And guess who’s best positioned to empower the founders in their quest to work together with the frontline people on the right details? You guessed it - you! BizOps.
The definition matters
I have written about the importance of definitions before. And this is why this definition matters:
Founder Mode is not micromanagement: a founder I worked with once told me “see, I like Founder Mode, I like to micromanage. I have to admit it feels good.” This might have made him feel good, and stroked his ego, but his team hated it, felt debilitated by it, and made all their work appear worthless to other leaders when he didn’t abide by the simplest guardrails they (rightfully) instated. Most of them don’t work for him any more. So no, Founder Mode is not an excuse for micromanagement.
Founder Mode is not about removing middle management: some people in tech love to hate on “Middle Managers” (most of them don’t know why, they just emulate others’ behaviour). But their idea of what manager does is antiquated at best and perpetuates their own desire for superiority at worst. Without some form of ‘middle management’ the founder would have to get into a heck of a lot more detail than they would with the right kind of people leading large orgs, teams, or initiatives. Those ‘middle managers’ are the ones to find themselves getting into “Founder Mode” within their own thread of leadership. So no, Founder Mode is not an excuse for removing ‘middle managers’ altogether.
Brian Chesky’s way of managing as a founder is a great combination of a birds eye view and a grass roots understanding of the business. It is what all good managers do: start at a bird’s eye, work your way down through the trees and bushes to find the grass that needs attention. But the higher your birds eye view, the more space between said view and the grass roots, the more levels of bushes, trees, and canopies you have. (and yes, that’s my sloppy attempt at a metaphor for ‘middle management’ 🤣, it’s been a long week, team)