The tweet in the post is not quite correct. The manual is CIA (strictly, OSS) and intended as a sourcebook for operatives to share ideas with people under (Axis) occupation. To frame it as "CIA vs activist groups" isnt really right and adds baggage where there need be done.<p>Original link:<p><a href="https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/SimpleSabotage.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/...</a>
I think at this point it's becoming (analytically) problematic to take "founder mode" at face value, and I'd be careful running with it too far. I gather that the talk† was an empirical case study, and the PG post was a first extrapolation from the talk, something in the actual spirit of an "essay" ("this is interesting, let's start writing and see where it takes from us") and people who were actually at the talk are bristling at the idea of that post being taken as received wisdom.<p>When you're at the point of literally situating "founder mode" as the opposite of the CIA's strategy for disrupting activist groups, you're probably a step past even "received wisdom".<p>There's an obvious failure mode for 3rd-hand analyses like these: for years hapless dingbat founders tried to cargo cult Jobs and Gates success by just deliberately being assholes. This isn't quite that, but you can see where the wind is blowing.<p>† <i>The Graham post that kicked off "founder mode" was in part a report on a recent private talk about things Brian Chesky had done to improve AirBNB's performance.</i>
I like this post because the venture capital guy uses screenshots of an old handbook to criticize the famously failed state of… Europe.<p>> In Europe however… :)<p>It is fascinating how some people have the tendency to, when made very angry about something, find solace and comfort in writing missives about the superiority of their minds and ideals. It can sometimes result in a pleasant cross between evergreen internet quotes “don’t put in the paper that I was mad” and “in this moment I am euphoric… because I am enlightened by my own intelligence”
The document the author is referencing is a CIA sabotage manual. It’s not a prescription for how to run a bureaucracy any more than their section on sabotaging electrical cables is intended as a prescription for electricians.<p>I think many Americans believe that because the American government is slow, unresponsive and generally painful that all governments must be this way. As a counterexample I would like to suggest Singapore, which has an online visa process (traveler visa) which was a breeze to follow and was approved in under 2 days. Compare that to the US legal immigration system (USCIS) which if you ever have the misfortune of dealing with, is a nightmare to navigate.<p>The government needs a UX department to streamline all of the painful processes it has. Make it easy to follow the law.
These organisational topics are important and there are dynamics here that the article doesn't emphasis on what and why this "Bureaucrat Mode" happens.<p>When companies are founded, there <i>must</i> be people involved who can execute a large chunk of the value chain single handily (if not the entire thing). Like a restauranteer who can buy ingredients, cook them, put together an interesting menu, engage in entertaining chit-chat, knows how to advertise and is good with finances.<p>In a large company though accountability matters a lot more and comparative advantage becomes a factor. It is also hard to hire great generalists (50% chance someone has a specific skill, that combination above is already approaching 1:100, let alone being good at something). So you specialise - there is a procurement specialist, a chef, a menu designer, a hostess, etc, etc.<p>Shortly after that transition there are still old hands around in leadership positions who know the entire value chain, but they slowly leave the business. Eventually there is a group of subject matter experts who execute the known chain really efficiently but no longer have personal or even institutional knowledge of how to set up a valuable new process because they specialise (theory of comparative advantage style logic kicks in). At this point, the dictatorial centralised nature of the company becomes a problem. If change is required, it depends on a tiny pool of leaders who are personally unclear on how the thing they control works at the micro level because they don't have the skillset required to set up new businesses. The only safe option is to iterate on the existing process, the company simply isn't capable of radical change any more. Or if it is, success will be more of a fluke than a predictable thing.
A demon that's attracted to people in bureaucrat mode and repelled by people in get-it-done mode (or visa versa) would be worth trillions of dollars per year to the economy and the most hated technology since the bomb.
<i>"There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”</i><p>The idea that there is no good reason or value in those big bureacratic machines is equally naive as idea that it just has to be that way.
Everything is case-by-case and 'big corpo ALWAYS bad' mentality is just stupid
This is why a Navy battle groups use <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_by_negation" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_by_negation</a><p>In summary, leaders of major slices of the effort run their own show, merely informing the HMFIC, who retains veto power, regarding status.
This article fundamentally misunderstands the role and purpose of bureaucracy.<p>Bureaucracy is tool to manage large, complex, and heterogeneous systems. Ideally, efficient and effective bureaucracy goes unnoticed. Why can I plug my laptop into the power outlet anywhere in Miami or in Vancouver and it just works? Why can I drive on the right side of the road from Toronto to San Diego and be reasonably sure that everyone else will drive on the right side as well?<p>Because humans have self-organized into a multitude of governments, standards organizations, and corporations that all align to produce the same shape of power plug and teach compatible rules-of-the-road across vast geographical distances and unrelated communities. Without bureaucracy, we humans would not be capable of building a global society.<p>Pointing to broken, ineffective, and inefficient processes to scapegoat “the bureaucrat” reveals an ignorance of the underlying mechanisms that make human society function.<p>EDIT:
To those of you downvoting this comment, please let me elaborate.<p>I am tired of the trope of the lazy bureaucrat because I refuse to believe that inefficient government and corporations are inevitable.<p>I do believe that we must strive for efficient and effective government to improve our society because the potential benefits are immense.<p>Those improvements must be driven by competent and qualified leaders who understand and foster the advantages that result from collaboration, communication, and making choices that benefit society as whole.<p>A failure of bureaucracy is a failure of leadership!
If you are a big successful entrenched organization, change to the status quo is the last thing you want.<p>Because the status quo is that you’re a big successful entrenched organization.
What is with these VCs always roleplaying.<p>Based on his Linkedin profile, Andrew Chen has never worked in companies that are large enough to have most of the qualities. I have. For 20+ years now.<p>And the reason that these companies do things like check legal, brand and compliance before decisions or have committees or create complex approval workflows is because they need to.<p>Often they work in highly regulated environments or are in situations where not having the right people in the loop costs more and can be an existential risk to the company. And they always learn this the hard way. Just like Elon Musk has been learning every day with Twitter.
If we study the mentality of the leadership, we can understand why. The utmost motive of the bureaucrats is self-preservation, so their default mentality is fear: fear to make mistakes, fear to become the scapegoat, fear to lose their jobs, fear to leave a bad impression to their bosses, and etc. So naturally they will design a system to shield themselves from such perceived failures, and so come the committees, processes, documents, and what not.
These founder/hacker/startup blogs of wisdom are quite shallow. Here’s a “how to Mode” mock-list and also the idea that things are self-replicating. So? Anything more?<p>I don’t think the hacker/startup/founder persona is interested in going deeper. Because to their mind society should be very loosely coupled on all levels and that would just solve all such problems.<p>- OSS projects are small enough to have a “BDFL”<p>- Most things about companies are bad. But if they were small and not monopolistic they would be good<p>- Problems along the way are partially solved with disruption/geniuses of the gaps<p>The cooperation between all these very small entities would be fine. I don’t know. I don’t think it is often touched upon.<p>You shouldn’t hire a chess prodigy grand master to teach you chess. Probably. You probably want someone who is more in touch with what it feels like to be a beginner. Who at least has been there.<p>Similarly you don’t want sociological input from the hacker/startup/founder persona. They’ve already got it figured out. (Refer to Dilbert)
Good read! Reminds me of the Gervais Principle <a href="https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...</a> , which is also a fantastic (and much longer) read with a similar lifecycle of the “corporation”
What attempts have been made to mathematically model bureaucracy? I’ve been wondering about this for a while but casual searches mostly lead to dead ends about something like data driven policy, or bureaucracy leveraging models but not itself being modeled.
And yet the incentives could not be clearer... if you want meaningful amounts of actual money that can house and educate your children, you need to let go of fanciful pursuits like "making stuff people want" and "solving hard technical problems" and instead get good at bureaucrat mode.<p>The most charitable reading of this situation, I think, is that the tech people routinely underestimate the leverage of even mediocre social technology vs. high-end computer-touching skill.
> It’s very aspirational to work somewhere where you see leadership from across the company working towards high-conviction success.<p>No. I've been there. It's absolutely awful.<p>Quite often those that "lead by conviction" are just narcissistic sociopaths. Their awful decisions are coated by a veneer of self-importance, and their conviction has no basis on reality.
That CIA manual excerpt also explains climate policy. It also explains why laymen distrust experts.<p>Remember: The powers that be forbid progress, as progress might disrupt the powers that be.