> Seems unusual for serial startup entrepreneurs who have built firms from $0 to $B to have also individually joined and worked up to C-level in "institutions" (50+ years old, and 5K - 100K+ employees, not just other tech unicorns still bearing Founder imprints) after learning the startup experience that lets them see management practice through a "it doesn't have to be like this" lens
Both PG's post and your point about his experience creating a rare perspective is spot on. While I think PG's "Founder Mode" concept needs further exploration, he's on to something I never saw in the typical HBR-type literature. It mirrors my experience being a startup founder acquired into a decades-old F500 tech company. It took me quite a while to figure out how this huge, well run company really worked and I always felt my understanding of the important ways it was different from my startup was unique and distinct from the standard business writing.
> the deeper structures and dynamics that make complex processes fundamentally work in balanced, self-correcting ways ... only fully understood across levels
I'd be very interested to compare notes. I'm username at alphabet's service.
I'm not sure it is.
Let's look at those three links:
1. The first of these dovetails -- not the same, but on the same hunt -- with Graham's piece, and is an excellent read.
- Unconventional wisdom
2. The second is formulaic anecdata consultjunk, the same method incurious journalists use covering politics through "focus groups".
- Conventional wisdom
3. The third uses the same formula, and while more effort (think "polling" or "survey" instead of "focus group") in an attempt to elevate from anecdata to study, seems not to have read or understood the first.
This third one is also contrary to the (often rejected while not yet disproven) theories* of Elliot Jacques, that people have sweet spot time horizons, and most can only flex +/- 2 horizons. As this article bullet lists (because of course) how to "shift from a leader/manager mindset to a lead/manage one and balance the two skillsets" it applies solely the manager rubric to action, through the lens of a manager that doesn't understand Graham's piece or the first article, almost irreconcilable with Graham's stance or the first HBR piece.
- Conventional wisdom (orthodoxy, even)
PG article and first link are not conventional wisdom, though it might sound that way to Taylorist thinking.
- - -
Perhaps the lack of awareness Graham keeps noting is to be expected.
Seems unusual for serial startup entrepreneurs who have built firms from $0 to $B to have also individually joined and worked up to C-level in "institutions" (50+ years old, and 5K - 100K+ employees, not just other tech unicorns still bearing Founder imprints) after learning the startup experience that lets them see management practice through a "it doesn't have to be like this" lens, making it rare to find the perspective necessary to delve into Graham's take or the difference between these three HBR articles.
Perhaps it's not only that management culture is a distorted bubble (PG: "VCs who haven't been founders themselves don't know how founders should run companies, and C-level execs, as a class, include some of the most skillful liars in the world").
Perhaps it's that founders with institutional perspective are themselves unicorns.
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Footnote:
* Elliott Jaques' "Stratified Systems Theory of Requisite Organization" suggests that individuals have a natural "sweet spot" time horizon for decision-making at work (which should align with the time horizon of the decisions' scope and impact), and most can only communicate up or manage down within a range of one or two levels above or below their own optimal horizon. — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requisite_organization