Paul Graham, founder of the famous startup accelerator Y Combinatorcoined a new term this week that has taken social media by storm: founder mode.

In one article published on September 1 AND published in X over Labor Day weekend, Graham separates “founder mode” from the traditional “manager mode” path by noting key differences in management styles and organizational structure. Graham's X post has over 21 million views at press time.

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The founder's way means that the CEO interacts with employees throughout the organization, not just their direct reports. The startup, even as it grows into a large company, is less hierarchical; The CEO may hold “pass-level” meetings with employees, for example. Graham gave the real-world example of Steve Jobs leading an annual meeting of what he thought were the 100 most important people at Apple — regardless of where they were on the corporate ladder.

Manager mode, meanwhile, is less hands-on and involves more delegation to other people. Founders can grow companies and run them effectively without going into manager mode, Graham said.

“Hire good people and give them room to do their jobs,” Graham wrote. “Sounds great when described that way, doesn't it? Except in practice, judging by founder after founder's report, what it often turns out to mean is: hire professional fakers and let them run the company into the ground.”

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Graham gave the example of Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, who tried to follow the conventional “manager mode” wisdom of hiring good people and letting them do their jobs.

“The results were disastrous,” Graham wrote.

Chesky had to resort to a different “foundational” style of management and explained in an interview last year founders have many advantages over managers: They have mastered every part of the process of building a company, from start to finish; They built the company, so they can rebuild it; and they have permission to rename the company or make major changes.

This is it: @bchesky in founder mode.

Three reasons why founders differ from managers:
1. Being a biological parent
2. Full permission to make change
3. Knowing how to rebuild the company pic.twitter.com/VhuQ70B8FK

— Yana Welinder (@yanatweets) September 2, 2024

In the past few days since Graham published his essay, the social media world has begun to explore what it means in humorous and insightful ways. One post made a comparison between micromanaging and founder mode.

the way of the founder pic.twitter.com/LWOlaFq4UJ

— ST (@seyitaylor) September 2, 2024

Other posts from women founders addressed the question: Can women be in founder mode too?

Czech wrote in X Earlier this week, women founders had reached out to her since Graham published the essay about how they can't run their companies in founder mode the same way men do.

“This must change”, he wrote.

Remember when female founders used founder mode and it all got canceled for her?

— Sara Mauskopf (@sm) September 3, 2024

It happened to me first – headlines portraying me as a “toxic leader” when I had to make the same, often unpopular, decisions that my uncritical male peers did.

For them, it's called Founder Mode, and it's celebrated (a fitting name! With its own merchandise! And brands… https://t.co/rF0IM1huy3

— Sophia Amoruso 3.0 (@sophiaamoruso) September 5, 2024