Why did Founder Mode go viral?
How did Paul Graham's essay 'Founder Mode' manage to not only reframe micromanagement, but go viral? By tapping into four principles of effective communication.
If you’ve been on the internet this week, you’ve likely seen a torrent of people chiming in on Founder Mode.
Coined in this seminal essay by Paul Graham, ‘Founder Mode’ describes a mode where founders are involved in every minutiae of their business - as opposed to the conventional wisdom of delegating to experienced managers - Manager Mode.
It’s hard for tech news - let alone blogs - to penetrate the mainstream consciousness. But within 24 hours of its release, the NYT ran a story: Why Silicon Valley Is Abuzz Over ‘Founder Mode’ while Business Insider wrote: Why Everyone in Tech is Talking About Founder Mode.
Why has this essay struck such a chord and achieved virality? How did Founder Mode not only cut through the noise, but become the entire noise?
It’s because it tapped into four principles of effective communication.
For regular breakdowns of great communication -
1. It rallied a tribe.
Founder Mode spoke to people whose identities are strongly attached to their tribal identity: founders! It addressed their core beliefs, including ones they don’t say out loud: “There are things founders can do that managers can't” and “VCs who haven't been founders themselves don't know how founders should run companies”.
Moreover, it associated this tribal identity with high status people. Brian Chesky, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk are named as CEOs who operate in Founder Mode.
2. It used polarization to highlight core values.
Founder Mode is defined in opposition to Manager Mode - where you hire qualified people, delegate, and then let them get on with the job. You’re not too involved in the details, because that would be micromanaging.
The essay alienates those who advocate for Manager Mode - it characterizes professional managers and their business school degrees as “professional fakers [who will] drive the company into the ground” and “C-level execs [who are] some of the most skillful liars in the world”. In alienating professional managers, Founder Mode inspires more fervent fanaticism from its tribe of founders.
Because polarization is baked into the message, Founder Mode has an in-built defense to critics. Those critics are from the professional manager class! Of course they’ve gotten their knickers in a twist - we’ve insulted their precious business school degrees!
3. It was a distinctive message that went against accepted wisdom
Attend a leadership conference and every other panel will be about empowering your team: “Hire brilliant people, and get out of their way”. It’s been said so much, it’s almost pablum.
Saying the exact opposite - that there’s a time and place for micromanagement; that successful founders obsess over every minutiae - is so countercultural, it's almost heretical! This distinctive message cut through like a bullet. Regardless of whether people agreed or disagreed - it jolted them out of their stupor and compelled them to engage.
4. It reframed something shameful as something sexy
Many founders have felt an impulse to micromanage. Founder Mode allows them to reframe their impulse - from something to be checked, to something to be celebrated. Many founders reshared the essay, commenting that they felt seen.
Perhaps relatedly, Silicon Valley successfully reframed another concept - that of a nerd. Where nerds were once awkward and unfashionable, they're are now cool, smart, and successful.
Perhaps they’re even building in Founder Mode.
Of course, the Founder Mode news cycle is yet not over - there’s already been credible founders who’ve criticized how Founder Mode is not equally accessible to all people (e.g. women, who are judged much more harshly for a micomanagerial style), and that it’s an excuse to be a bad manager.
Arguably, Graham’s final masterstroke is in anticipating this (very obvious) rebuttal:
But regardless of where the jury ultimately lands on Founder Mode, as a piece of effective communication - it represents the gold standard. It was memorable, it stood for something distinctive, it rallied a fanatical tribe, and it inspired a movement.
If you learned something, please -
The amount of memes this has spawned really highlights its success