Details Matter and Leadership is more than Delegation

Periodically, someone in Silicon Valley discovers something really obvious, but they give it a catchy name and they’re a famous person, so their discovery gets traction.

And here I am grifting on one of the latest such mini hype cycles. In my defense, it’s a topic I really care about and, jokes aside, I’m glad it got popular.

Founder Mode

The latest obvious discovery is Founder Mode. You can read the entire article, but it can be summarized as:

1. Don’t delegate everything
2. As the leader, don’t try to act as a kind of “statesman”, detached, only lightly touching the day to day operations of the business
3. Instead, get down into the nitty gritty, understand the details, talk to everyone or as many as you can and be involved in every part of the process
4. It’s like micro management, but it’s good, because you’re not doing it to control people, you’re doing it because you have a precise vision and details matter.

And my only reaction to this is:

I’ve been saying this for years, and not only me.

This hyper obsession with delegation and detachment for leaders is BS.

Steve Job cried because the CD tray in the first iMac was a tray, and not a slot. He also used to go with hipster boi Jony Ive around France and look at hand made knives to get design cues they might use. No stone was to be left unturned.

It’s like De Niro’s mobster character going into the casino kitchen and insisting that every muffin should have at least 10 blueberries on it:

A billion dollar casino, and the big boss is having a fit about inconsistent muffins? Yes. Because everything matters, and perfection is a hard habit to acquire for those of us who got a bit too comfortable with mediocrity. I’m not going to explain here the difference between perfection and perfectionism, because it’s bit too philosophical, and also one idea per newsletter, let’s not confuse things. Keep it simple.

If you want it done right, you got to do it yourself (?)

And forget Jobs, you know it won’t get done like you want it unless you’re involved in it. And sometimes that’s fine, it does’t have to get done exactly like you want it. You can delegate. They can do it in their own way. And sometimes that’s just great, and that’s exactly what you need.

But if you do care about a precise vision, details matter. Every detail matters.

Am I condemned to do it all myself?

For a while. If you’re the one with the vision, yes, for a while, you got to be kind of into everything.

There’s people that you will really truly be able to delegate and they will actually understand, but they’re few and very far between. You can work for years without meeting one.

And again, this doesn’t matter so much some times, especially in repetitive, good enough is good enough, it ain’t my company anyway kind of situations. That’s why Founder Mode is actually a very good name for it. It’s not only for founders, far from it, but it’s very suited to founders, especially in the early days of the company.

And in any situation where you really care about seeing something come to life in a particular way, if you really take pride in your work, then no detail is too small. Prepare to know them all. At least for a while, until it grows enough that it can kind of stand on its own.