founder-mode

Design your skip-level meeting strategy — who to meet, how often, what to ask, and what signals to watch for. Based on Chesky's concentric circle model where the CEO knows people 2-4 levels deep. Use when you want to stay connected to the ground truth without undermining your managers.

Design your CEO/founder operating rhythm — what to review, how often, and how to structure it. Based on Brian Chesky's review cadence system at Airbnb. Use when a founder wants to build a structured operating rhythm instead of being reactive.

Diagnose organizational health against Brian Chesky's framework. Detects the division → politics → bureaucracy → complacency arc that kills founder-led companies. Use when a founder suspects their org structure is slowing them down.

Build the product narrative BEFORE building the product. Based on Chesky's principle that "the story will often dictate the product." Use when planning a launch, feature, or product and you need the story to drive the design.

Score an executive or senior hire using Brian Chesky's 'guilty until proven innocent' framework. Generates a reference check script, identifies red flags, and assesses builder vs. manager fit. Use when evaluating a candidate for a senior role.

Take a behavioral self-assessment to discover where you sit on the founder mode spectrum. 15 questions that reveal your actual operating mode — not what you think you do, but what you actually do. Use for honest self-reflection.

Diagnose where you sit on the founder mode vs. manager mode spectrum. Based on Brian Chesky's operating system and Paul Graham's framework. Use when a founder or CEO wants to assess whether they're leading like a founder or drifting into manager mode.

Score whether a delegation decision is healthy (amplifying what you love) or harmful (abdicating what you don't understand). Based on Chesky's principles on what to keep vs. what to let go. Use when deciding whether to delegate something or stay involved.

Determine whether a decision is a founder-only move (requires institutional memory, passion, and permission) or a manageable decision that can be delegated. Based on Chesky's framework of what only a founder can do. Use when deciding whether to stay involved in or hand off a decision.

Reframe a crisis, constraint, or setback as a forcing function for founder-mode decisions that were previously politically blocked. Based on Chesky's pandemic transformation and Andy Grove's "great companies are defined by their crises." Use when facing a serious challenge and want to use it as fuel, not just survive it.

Score any process, workflow, or meeting for bureaucrat-mode creep. Based on Paul Graham's bureaucrat mode anti-patterns and Chesky's war on fake work. Use when something feels slow and you want to know if it's necessary complexity or unnecessary bureaucracy.

Force 10x thinking on any goal using Brian Chesky's "Add a Zero" exercise. Breaks you out of incremental thinking by asking what would need to be true to achieve 10x the result. Use when a team is thinking too small or optimizing within existing constraints.