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Founder Mode vs. Manager Mode: Lessons from Brian Chesky’s Talk
This article reflects on a powerful talk Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky gave at a Y Combinator event in September 2024. Chesky challenged the conventional wisdom about how to scale companies, contrasting “manager mode” with what he and others are now calling “founder mode.”
Conclusion
Brian Chesky argued that most traditional management advice founders receive is not only unhelpful but often harmful. Following guidance such as “hire good people and let them do their jobs” nearly derailed Airbnb, leading Chesky to study Steve Jobs and develop a new framework — founder mode. Unlike manager mode, which assumes CEOs should only operate through direct reports and treat organizational units as black boxes, founder mode embraces deeper involvement, skip-level interactions, and founder-specific intuition.
Chesky and others observed that VCs and professional executives often gaslight founders, making them believe their instincts are wrong, when in fact founder-led approaches can yield stronger results. Steve Jobs’ example of personally selecting Apple’s “top 100” leaders outside the org chart illustrates founder mode’s flexibility and unconventionality. While founders cannot run a 2,000-person company like a 20-person startup, they must still preserve some founder-driven intensity, judgment, and culture-setting.
The pandemic era highlighted the loneliness of founders as their companies scaled, with executives older and more experienced than them creating feelings of inadequacy. Yet, Chesky’s story suggests that founder mode — though still undefined — is a more effective, if complex, model for sustaining innovation at scale. Its eventual codification could redefine how future companies grow.
Key points
🚀 Founder mode: A new way of running companies where founders stay deeply engaged rather than adopting the detached style of professional managers.
⚖️ Manager mode vs. founder mode: Manager mode assumes CEOs only act through direct reports, while founder mode allows direct engagement, cross-level meetings, and cultural shaping.
🔥 Bad advice: Founders are often told to “hire good people and give them space,” which frequently results in hiring skilled fakers who damage companies.
🧩 Steve Jobs’ Apple: Jobs broke management orthodoxy with retreats for his personal “top 100,” proving founder-led strategies can sustain even at scale.
🎭 Gaslighting founders: Founders often feel manipulated — both by external advisors pushing manager mode and by executives resistant to founder engagement.
📉 Airbnb’s experience: Chesky nearly lost control following conventional advice but restored direction through a more hands-on founder-driven model, achieving strong cash flow margins.
🧭 Delegation boundaries: Founder mode requires nuanced delegation — not full detachment, but not total micromanagement either.
🌍 No playbook yet: Business schools and management books don’t recognize founder mode, leaving founders to experiment and learn from each other.
🤝 Loneliness of scaling: Chesky described scaling as riding a “lonely rocket ship,” where peers disappear, co-founders become subordinates, and hired executives create role imbalance.
🔮 Future impact: Once codified, founder mode could empower future entrepreneurs to scale companies more effectively than traditional professional managers ever could.
Summary
The hope is that codifying founder mode will one day provide entrepreneurs with a playbook as clear as “manager mode,” changing the future of business leadership.
Brian Chesky challenged conventional startup-scaling wisdom, saying Airbnb’s near-disastrous early experience came from following traditional management advice.
He distinguished “founder mode” from “manager mode,” emphasizing that scaling doesn’t mean abandoning founder instincts.
Founders who tried to switch to manager mode reported decline, while those who returned to founder-driven practices saw success.
Chesky studied Steve Jobs, who used unconventional tactics like personally selecting Apple’s “top 100” leaders outside the hierarchy.
Founder mode embraces hands-on engagement, skip-level interactions, and founder-led cultural decisions, instead of rigid delegation.
Many founders feel gaslit by advisors and executives who pressure them to run companies like professional managers.
Chesky highlighted the loneliness of scaling, where CEOs lose the equality of co-founding teams and must manage older, seasoned executives.
Founder mode requires flexible delegation: founders remain deeply engaged but gradually build trust in managers where appropriate.
Business schools and management frameworks ignore founder mode, leaving it to be discovered through trial and founder storytelling.
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Founder Mode: A Consultant’s Perspective
Merits
1. Direct Continuity of Vision
• Founders often carry a unique clarity of purpose and product insight that cannot be replicated by external managers.
• In founder mode, they inject this vision continuously into the company’s operations, reducing drift and ensuring alignment.
2. Cultural Authenticity
• Founders embody the “why” of the company. By staying deeply involved, they transmit values more effectively than HR handbooks or formalized training ever could.
• Employees who interact directly with a founder often report higher engagement and stronger emotional connection to the mission.
3. Speed and Innovation
• Founder mode allows for faster feedback loops: founders can spot product issues, design flaws, or cultural misalignments earlier than a distant CEO who relies solely on reports.
• Because hierarchy is softened, ideas can bubble up more freely when founders bypass layers of management.
4. Selective Inspiration
• Much like Steve Jobs’s “Top 100” retreats, founder-led rituals can inspire loyalty and make employees feel part of something historic.
• This is particularly powerful in creative or innovation-driven industries where motivation and belief are competitive advantages.
5. Resilience Against Bureaucracy
• Large organizations tend to ossify. Founder mode counteracts this by re-injecting entrepreneurial energy, keeping the company nimble even at scale.
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Challenges
1. Scalability
• A founder cannot remain intimately involved in every decision once an organization surpasses hundreds or thousands of employees.
• Without clear boundaries, founder mode risks becoming a bottleneck.
2. Micromanagement Risk
• The line between “healthy founder involvement” and “stifling micromanagement” is thin.
• Overstepping into every detail can disempower strong managers, discourage initiative, and slow execution.
3. Talent Retention
• Seasoned executives, especially those hired later, may resist or resent a founder’s constant presence.
• Some may view founder mode as a lack of trust in their expertise, leading to friction or attrition.
4. Founder Dependence
• Organizations heavily reliant on a founder’s personality and instincts face succession risk.
• If the founder burns out, steps back, or loses credibility, the company may struggle to sustain momentum.
5. Emotional Toll
• As Brian Chesky described, the “rocket ship loneliness” can intensify in founder mode. Constant involvement in every dimension of the business amplifies pressure and isolates founders from peers who truly understand their position.
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Consulting Recommendation: A Balanced Model
The optimal approach may be hybrid founder mode:
• Founder Involvement in High-Leverage Areas: product, design, culture, and strategic prioritization.
• Delegation in Operational Functions: finance, compliance, HR, and supply chain, where founders typically add less unique value.
• Structured Founder Rituals: recurring touchpoints (skip-levels, retreats, “priority resets”) institutionalize founder energy without overwhelming managers.
• Succession Safeguards: build systems that capture founder instincts in frameworks and culture, ensuring continuity beyond the individual.
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✅ Bottom line:
Founder mode is not a rejection of management discipline, but rather a recognition that founder DNA is a competitive advantage. The companies that thrive will be those that formalize founder-driven practices without crossing into chaos or dependency.
