15 Comments
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Marie's avatar

This is great (especially amongst the sea of BS spewed on LinkedIn) and rings incredibly true

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Naval's avatar

Truth.

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Christopher Kaminski's avatar

👀

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Priya Vaidyanath's avatar

Thank you for talking about the hard stuff! We live through these leaders, their style and can never articulate the way you did. There is truth, candor and self reflection.

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Satish Suggala's avatar

Working with benevolent dictators is like endurance sport. You suffer in the moment & it's hard to be zen about said suffering. But when you turn around and look back at how far you've come, you're astonished at how you were able to do that.

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Amar Rama's avatar

>> That's the thing about unreasonable people. They're often right.

Maybe :-) this is a strong assertion. I will confirm from personal experience that

>> People who are often right are also often unreasonable to the majority.

I love the clarity and honesty in your words btw.

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Abhinav Gupta's avatar

This resonates; benevolent dictatorships in visionary companies can cut through the noise and provide real direction. When a founder is firm about the product yet deeply supportive of their team, creativity and impact thrive. It’s not about democracy but about leadership that empowers through clarity rather than indecision.

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Swag Valance's avatar

How does a Steve Jobs fit into this definition then? Sure, you could say his obsessiveness around design without compromised build excellent products which eventually grew to become an excellent company (the two are different).

But the very same person was a disastrous dictatorship model when it came to his own health. Rejecting the best professional advice of his oncologist, he made the dictatorial decision to outsmart science himself and eat nothing but carrots for months... eventually dying from a treatable cancer and orphaning his daughter over dictatorial stubbornness.

Dictatorships can just as easily create empire-destroying as they do empire-creating organizations. Unlike a 'democracy' where a minority might cry out about the giant sinkhole ahead of them, a dictator will merely fire that person and surround themselves with a version of reality that most pleases their belief system.

A groupthink of one is still groupthink.

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Bill Gates's avatar

"Circular debates about priorities that produced nothing but calendar invites for follow-up meetings. ... I wanted to scream. Just tell me what matters. Make the damn decision. ... That torn PRD suddenly made sense. I'd rather have a founder who knows exactly what they want ..."

You're an incompetent PM—or maybe just a PM in title, without knowing what being a PM truly means.

You need to drive progress within limited resources (or choose not to progress at all). And when you hit the limits, you need to make real decisions—not just choices, but decisive judgment calls.

If you can't fulfill your responsibilities as a PM and instead wish for a founder who knows exactly what they want—then you're not doing your job.

Reporting that a project should not proceed is also an important role of a PM.

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Lukas Warner's avatar

Philosopher king of the office.

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George Krachtopoulos's avatar

And if this was scaled to nation/society level, Plato's idea about Philosopher-Kings would fit well

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Sonal Goyal's avatar

Founder DNA decoded and expectations set. Great writeup.

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Chase Stubblefield's avatar

🫡

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Gaurav Bhatia's avatar

Need laser focus to get things done and get business humming

Most of the time that is the only way

Take everything- product, marketing, technology, experience

And above all a laser focus to package it together- can't listen to everything….and make decison by committe

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Gopi Krishna's avatar

Phenomenally written without filters. Thanks for writing about the less-written.

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