externalizing of responsibility
the purpose of this is to explain how i want everyone on our team to view their relationship with the company
i feel an immense amount of discomfort when people perceive me as their boss, or use words like “working for me”.
i much prefer words like “working with me”
the pessimistic view is that i don’t want to take responsibility for someone else
the optimistic view is that i can’t stand the idea of working with people who don’t see themselves as protagonists - and the idea of working for someone implies to me that they’re a follower / side character
i want the people i work with to be agents - actors, carrying out their will on the world
and i don’t want deference between of status or hierarchy - i don’t want people to take what i say as gospel, i don’t want people to respect me because of a job title.
every day i should have to re-earn the respect of those around me
every day people should treat me like everyone else
i don’t want to work with “followers”
i’d sooner shut down the company than hire someone who “wants a job”, as opposed to “among a set of opportunities they have wants to work with us”
i’d sooner shut down the company than hire someone who thinks “I do this because someone else told me to” is anything other than an abhorrent desertion of responsibility.
i’d sooner shut down the company than hire someone who see this as a “way to get a paycheck” or “paying the bills”
the desertion of responsibility feels awful to me
You know those last statements cannot be true- it’s infeasible to scale a company to xxxx people without having some mediocre in the mix. There isn’t enough courage (or equity) to go around to empower 5,000 people to the degree that they think of themselves as peers to the founder. Empowerment, as granted through titles and equity, is a finite resource (and a scarce one at that - there is usually only 15% employee allocation… and one VP Eng)
You know that a hierarchy will emerge, naturally. But that’s actually a feature. Authority is an excellent way to scale yourself as a founder - lean into it. At the beginning, start up sure do feel like just hacking with your friends, your equals – but as you scale - complications with compensation require you to enforce privilege on certain datums etc… all i’ll say is that consider: publishing an article like this, makes it harder for you to enforce that necessary hierarchy when the need arises, because there is a public record of you identifying against it.
The solution is to allow a multi cultural network to take shape. You have your inner circle, the founding bloc, your friends, and when you get to 1B, you are bound to have some bobs who will clock out at 5. Compensate accordingly.
There have been many great men who have conquered massive lands: Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hannibal, Frederick, Bismarck - whilst having a very tight chain of command and strict hierarchy. So clearly authority does not preclude effectiveness and achievement. You could say that these are examples from an older society that it’s more hierarchical in nature (kings, nobility, peasants… Zero social mobility) but what about Musk? And Hasan Sukkar From 11x, the company you looked at for your article on compliments… he was an extremely brutal ruler. He fired many people on their first day (in one case, despite a grand relocation of one’s family across the country)- but that’s why he held respect. In the end, he flew too close to the sun, and when the inevitable cracks in the levered beta business model showed, Benchmark did their classic swapsie, which even Ms. Tavel was not safe from :). But that didn’t change the sense of camaraderie on the ground floor of 11x. I have not felt anything since. I yearn for the trenches like the solider who grows tired with civilian life. The unification of Germany failed in 1848 because the revolutionaries deliberated with words, debate, theses, speeches, liberty. History shows us that to win, you must rule with iron and blood.