Two widely-linked things are bouncing around in my head, and I think they’re saying the same thing. First, Ted Chiang on Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art, emphasis mine:
The companies promoting generative-A.I. programs claim that they will unleash creativity. In essence, they are saying that art can be all inspiration and no perspiration—but these things cannot be easily separated. I’m not saying that art has to involve tedium. What I’m saying is that art requires making choices at every scale; the countless small-scale choices made during implementation are just as important to the final product as the few large-scale choices made during the conception. It is a mistake to equate “large-scale” with “important” when it comes to the choices made when creating art; the interrelationship between the large scale and the small scale is where the artistry lies.
And second, Paul Graham on Founder Mode:
There are as far as I know no books specifically about founder mode. Business schools don’t know it exists. All we have so far are the experiments of individual founders who’ve been figuring it out for themselves. But now that we know what we’re looking for, we can search for it. I hope in a few years founder mode will be as well understood as manager mode. We can already guess at some of the ways it will differ.
Graham argues that “there are things founders can do that managers can’t.” While there literally may not be tasks that a founder can do that a hired manager can’t, there are certainly decisions a founder can make that managers can’t. Because they lack the context, the experience and the history that a founder has. To bastardize Chiang for a minute, founder mode requires making choices at every scale; it’s the interrelationship between the large scale (strategy) and the small scale (the design of a listing page) where founder mode lies.