{"id":30,"date":"2024-09-15T11:42:17","date_gmt":"2024-09-15T11:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/?p=30"},"modified":"2025-08-10T13:47:48","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T13:47:48","slug":"founder-mode-creator-mode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/process-improvement\/founder-mode-creator-mode\/","title":{"rendered":"What does founder mode have to do with Taylor Swift and MrBeast?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"655\" data-id=\"31\" src=\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screen-Shot-2024-09-15-at-9.31.06-pm-1024x655.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screen-Shot-2024-09-15-at-9.31.06-pm-1024x655.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screen-Shot-2024-09-15-at-9.31.06-pm-300x192.png 300w, https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screen-Shot-2024-09-15-at-9.31.06-pm-768x492.png 768w, https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screen-Shot-2024-09-15-at-9.31.06-pm-1536x983.png 1536w, https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screen-Shot-2024-09-15-at-9.31.06-pm-2048x1311.png 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul Graham\u2019s essay on \u201cFounder mode\u201d has taken the internet by a storm of sorts. In the essay, Paul speaks about the fundamental differences in the management style of founders and managers and how founders are clearly better suited to understand what the company needs and to decisively act on that understanding too. He calls managers \u201cprofessional fakers\u201d who are mostly responsible for company\u2019s downfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Paul hasn\u2019t defined what \u201cfounder mode\u201d exactly covers, he has referred to a few examples of founders using unorthodox means to run the companies they founded. These unorthodox means can involve de-delegating to the extent that departments are less of black boxes than what otherwise is the norm with manager-style leadership or cutting through org structures to effect changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, it is hard not to notice the parallels between founder mode and creator mode. Creators are those who are constantly producing original content for public consumption. A successful creator has a finger on the pulse of the consumer and is likely to use this deep understanding of the customer to create top quality content. The creators might have a team to support them, but the creators have the final control and say on the created product as well as its marketing. Creators stay close to the product they are creating and they also want their support staff to be close to the product development process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This fanatic dedication to the product and its quality is something that\u2019s common between good founders and creators. For founders, rapid launch and iteration is key for the acceleration of product-market fit for any product. Similarly, for content creators, the more of their content that\u2019s out there, the more they benefit from getting the feedback loop that drives improvement. Taylor Swift believes in being prolific with the release of her work as she once said \u201cI definitely feel more free to create now, and I\u2019m making more albums at a more rapid pace than I ever did before, because I think the more art you create, hopefully the less pressure you put on yourself\u201d. MrBeast has said that he can work up to 8 days non-stop on a video and that he often hires people who have his insane work ethic. Creators like Taylor Swift or MrBeast build a team around themselves that shares their work ethic and dedication to their product. In Taylor\u2019s case, the products are the songs she creates or the epic performances she gives. In MrBeast\u2019s case, his crew is often handpicked to match his work ethic and dedication for YouTube content creation. As he puts it: \u201cFor me, it&#8217;s almost easier to hire people that are just hard workers, that are obsessed, and really coachable, and just train &#8217;em how to be good at content creation and production, than to hire someone from like traditional media\u201d. One can see that Taylor and MrBeast have a content creation process that is very much similar to a business being run in the founder mode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If a company runs in \u201ccreator mode\u201d by getting serious about the product and its quality, instead of all the meta metrics around the product, it will naturally become like companies being run in the \u201cfounder mode\u201d, without actually being run by founders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Graham\u2019s essay on \u201cFounder mode\u201d has taken the internet by a storm of sorts. In the essay, Paul speaks about the fundamental differences in the management style of founders and managers and how founders are clearly better suited to understand what the company needs and to decisively act on that understanding too. He calls &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/process-improvement\/founder-mode-creator-mode\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">What does founder mode have to do with Taylor Swift and MrBeast?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,13],"tags":[19,14,16,18,17,15],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-process-improvement","category-strategy","tag-creative-process","tag-founder-mode","tag-mrbeast","tag-startup","tag-strategy","tag-taylor-swift"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What does founder mode have to do with Taylor Swift and MrBeast? - AppliedMojo Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This blog tries to demonstrate how the idea of &quot;founder mode&quot; is very similar to the process followed by creators like Taylor Swift and MrBeast, in coming up with their creative output.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/process-improvement\/founder-mode-creator-mode\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What does founder mode have to do with Taylor Swift and MrBeast? - AppliedMojo Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This blog tries to demonstrate how the idea of &quot;founder mode&quot; is very similar to the process followed by creators like Taylor Swift and MrBeast, in coming up with their creative output.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/process-improvement\/founder-mode-creator-mode\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AppliedMojo Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-09-15T11:42:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-10T13:47:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screen-Shot-2024-09-15-at-9.31.06-pm-1024x655.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Theo Cohen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Theo Cohen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/process-improvement\/founder-mode-creator-mode\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/process-improvement\/founder-mode-creator-mode\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Theo Cohen\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4d0d313532538704313eebcaa44ed0e2\"},\"headline\":\"What does founder mode have to do with Taylor Swift and MrBeast?\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-09-15T11:42:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-08-10T13:47:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/process-improvement\/founder-mode-creator-mode\/\"},\"wordCount\":561,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/process-improvement\/founder-mode-creator-mode\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screen-Shot-2024-09-15-at-9.31.06-pm-1024x655.png\",\"keywords\":[\"creative process\",\"founder mode\",\"mrbeast\",\"startup\",\"strategy\",\"taylor swift\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Process improvement\",\"Strategy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/process-improvement\/founder-mode-creator-mode\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/process-improvement\/founder-mode-creator-mode\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.appliedmojo.com.au\/blog\/process-improvement\/founder-mode-creator-mode\/\",\"name\":\"What does founder mode have to do with Taylor Swift and MrBeast? 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