Sergey Brin in founder mode actually saved Google. He had a big tiff inside Google, because Gemini wasn’t allowed to be used for coding. He told Sundar, “I can’t deal with these people. You have to deal with this.” Big companies always build bureaucracy. Sergey (and Larry) still have super voting power, and he used it to cut through the BS. Suddenly Google is moving like a startup again. Their AI went from “way behind” to “easily #1” across domains in a year.

Brian Chesky’s talks and Paul Graham’s essay on founder mode have inspired me a lot. Every founder should learn this. Elon has always operated in founder mode. Zuck hiring Alexandr Wang and setting up the Meta Superintelligence Lab is also a sign that he is in founder mode.