I grew up seeing founder mode first-hand. My dad founded Celestron, and he operated just as Paul is describing. At my current company, I see the CEO doing the exact same thing, which gives me great hope. Huge contrast from my previous start-up, for which I have great anti-hope unfortunately. (Current company is Zap Surgical Systems, with Dr. John Adler as the founder.) I've seen John everywhere, all day every day. I've seen him literally on his hands and knees under our robotic treatment table back in the engineering lab, discussing details with a young mechanical engineer. And yeah, we are curing cancer ;-)
To re-iterate: What I believe PaulG is saying is that there is a crucially important phenomenon that we don't yet understand, and naming it will facilitate the process of bringing it into focus so that we can help more companies be successful.
His footnote has a painful resonance: "I also have another less optimistic prediction: as soon as the concept of founder mode becomes established, people will start misusing it."
This is exactly what has happened to the Agile methodology.
To re-iterate: What I believe PaulG is saying is that there is a crucially important phenomenon that we don't yet understand, and naming it will facilitate the process of bringing it into focus so that we can help more companies be successful.
His footnote has a painful resonance: "I also have another less optimistic prediction: as soon as the concept of founder mode becomes established, people will start misusing it."
This is exactly what has happened to the Agile methodology.