5 behavioural traits of generational founders
And how to spot them
After reading dozens of academic papers on founder psychology and speaking with hundreds of successful founders and their investors, here are 5 traits to look out for when meeting first time founders:
1️⃣ A complete and utter disregard for mundanity.
If it sounds familiar, it won’t be coming out of their mouths. Relatability isn’t their strong suit. They don’t post threads deliberating on the ‘founder experience’. Their experience is singular. They don’t know about the latest shows on Netflix. They stand aside. Sometimes intentionally, and other times because they have absolutely no idea how to fit in. Most norms seem irrational. Following conventions is a burden, as it distracts them from what makes life truly wonderful and inspiring. You will either never hear them talk about the weather because they do not small talk, or, always talk about the weather because it is the only small talk they know how to make. There’s a deeper reason why they don’t follow the herd: they never accept things at face value. They rely on their own way of seeing things, and where most succumb to agreeing with the majority for fear of being ostracised, they rely on their intuition above all else.
2️⃣ An incessant need of putting their imagination at play.
You will notice that what distinguishes good companies from generational ones is the latter camp’s interminable quest for successive reinventions. Even when they are at the very the top, companies like Apple and Amazon seem to be innovating faster than others. That company culture is reflective of their Number 1s personality. Generational founders are deeply creative and deeply drawn to novelty. New ideas come naturally to them. Their mind is wired for inventing things. They draw visions of the future almost entirely in their heads, and get a rush of excitement at the idea of bringing them into the world. They have absolutely no desire of following existing processes. They steer clear from naysayers and from those who seek to batter their creative mind into submission. Meaning comes from doing new things, not repetition. They will always create; it’s the only way they know how to live.
3️⃣ A skill which compounded from childhood.
Exceptionalism is, in at least some measure, earned. A great artist or athlete becomes so, because she or he has spent an exorbitant amount of time working, re-working and perfecting their craft. The same principle applies to entrepreneurship. The exceptional founders have a skill they’ve be training since their childhood. That skill, whatever it is, made them 100 times more effective at building than their closest rivals. I am not exaggerating with the comparative scale: skill development is also susceptible to compound growth. By the time they enter adulthood, it is almost impossible for anyone else to compete. It may be something as obvious as coding. But it can also be a hidden ability. Something that comes so naturally to them, they are not even aware of the unfair advantage it endows them with. Whatever it is, they trained it repeatedly over the years, and it became a key determinant to their colossal success.
4️⃣ A pathological level of impatience.
It is already conventional wisdom that the best founders move fast. An inevitable side effect of that is that those same founders are pathologically impatient. Seriously, inertia is death. People they work close with move more slowly than them, and they don’t like it. Entropy is their biggest fear. And the effect it’ll have on their mood is visible. It makes sense: such founders turned an idea into a multi-billion dollar company, within their lifetime. Even getting your first million in a business requires a huge number of obstacles, parallel workflows and innumerable iterations. The only thing which can counteract the overwhelmingness of it, is obsessive speed. To the outside world, they are irrationally relentless. But speed is their coping mechanism for dealing with the world’s inertia. Wherever it comes from, whether trauma or a burning desire to win, anything other than sprinting is intolerable.
5️⃣ A secret sauce in working with others.
Here’s something which gets easily dismissed. We like to point out the idiosyncrasies in very successful people. We ask ourselves what makes them stand apart. We often portray them as lone wolves. We do so to the extent where we don’t notice that their biggest talent may be a social one… There’s one thing worth remembering: a company - as the name may suggest - is never a solo job. Companies start as a small nucleus of people. They thrive depending on how those people work together. Soon enough they become mega organisations… The point is: ventures are all about people. So can we really buy into the idea that generational founders are anti-sociable? Behind the assertiveness, and impatience, and strong-headedness, there is at least one way they are exceptionally gifted at working with others. It could be in the art of persuasion, in talent spotting, in enthusing a crowd or bringing the best out of individuals close to them. Social skills manifest themselves in different ways. But they all stem from an particularly refined ability to understand the feelings, intentions and desires of others. They may hide their emotional intelligence well, but awareness of others will always be a core attribute of the very best.
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Empathy is often portrayed as a weakness and an antonym to assertiveness. It is far from it.
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