I struggle to see "founder mode" as something that scales. Is there not some self-selection bias occurring here, given the audience "included a lot of the most successful founders we've funded"?
If a founder is exceptional and all of the other stars necessary for a startup to succeed have aligned, this may be a good approach. But then we are just back to the question YC has always tried to answer: what makes a founder exceptional?
What about the founders who failed _because_ they were in "founder mode"?
I am not sure this article represents the beginning of a paradigm shift like it seems to think it does.
If a founder is exceptional and all of the other stars necessary for a startup to succeed have aligned, this may be a good approach. But then we are just back to the question YC has always tried to answer: what makes a founder exceptional?
What about the founders who failed _because_ they were in "founder mode"?
I am not sure this article represents the beginning of a paradigm shift like it seems to think it does.