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0 pointsbaxtr1y ago0 comments

I think this is a classical case of survivorship bias.

What about all those companies operating in founder mode that ended up being a disaster? What about all other companies that transitioned away from founder mode and worked even better afterwards? Both categories are conveniently neglected.

Take Apple for example.

Steve Jobs is mentioned 3 times in the essay. He seems to be the main prototype for a CEO in founder mode for pg.

Yet, in the book Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, Jobs is quoted as saying:

"I am very proud of the many products we have created, but the thing I am most proud of is creating the company that was able to create the products. I think of Apple as the most important work of my life."

This statement reflects Jobs' belief that the culture and company he built at Apple were his greatest achievements, as they allowed for continuous innovation long after any single product launch. And long after his death Apple is still thriving.

So is Apple still in founder mode with Jobs gone or is Apple in a different mode that pg hasn’t recognized?

0 comments

Flop73311y ago

I think this is one of those cases where there's really very little way of knowing what really worked and what didn't. It's like a sports team: you can make ALL the right managerial choices, but still fail due to chance and factors outside your control.

At best there are some reasonably good heuristics.

bradleyjg1y ago

On the flip side you can hire Michael Jordan and screw everything else up and still win. Then go on to write a business book that’s completely misleading because you never realize that you did only one thing right, and that was enough.

cloche1y ago

> On the flip side you can hire Michael Jordan and screw everything else up and still win

Unless your company is a baseball team

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