Human Forces: Startup Observations #1
This is a short newsletter to VC, Investor and People Ops folks I have connected with. My intention is to provide a regular update on the human issues I’m seeing show up in the tech leaders and organizations I work with.
For regular updates, feel free to subscribe (to either this summary or my longer newsletter on how human dynamics drive the fate of great companies).
Immigration Status
About half my clients are immigrants. I am an immigrant. The clients of mine who are not immigrants have immigrants working for them.
It’s hard to describe the stress that immigration issues can cause. You may not be able to see your family for years. You may have have an attorney tell you that “you can go back home while you wait”, ignoring the fact that you own a home in California, and your kids go to school there (do you tell your partner what the attorney said? Do you tell your kids?) Just approaching the immigration desk at SFO on an H1 can be stressful.
Building a startup is hard enough. It’s important to acknowledge the additional layer of deep personal anxiety that the current political situation has threaded through leaders, their teams and their organizations in the startup world.
Use of AI As Coach/Mentor
Founders and execs are using LLMs as coaches and mentors. I know because they will fairly frequently tell me they’ve decided to work with me after trying an LLM first.
LLMs can be attractive because they will answer the demand “just tell me what to do!”. At times, super helpful, and an accelerator. The issue is discernment. A human coach will help a leader determine what they, uniquely want to do. If there was a “right answer” for all leadership questions, building a company wouldn’t be hard. It is, and the ability to sift through opinions, blog posts, data and determine what is necessary and aligned for this company at this moment is crucial. Hard to LLMs to help with that.
In my own practice, I am discovering that a hybrid approach, where the digital version of me has a history of in-person sessions to draw on, works well.
Creativity and AI Fluency vs Experience
There’s a difference between understanding a technology and being fluent in it.
When you’re fluent, creativity flows much more easily. Possibilities present themselves more naturally, the friction towards imagined futures is far less (“of course we’ll have AGI in a year or two”).
Leaders needs to build a habit of noticing, and leaning hard on, the AI fluent. This can be uncomfortable because these people may not be the most senior or experienced (although they may be - fluency is not necessarily a function of age). Risks have to be taken. Egos may be bent and need managing.
The PM Role Becomes More Generative/Creative
PMs have typically been sythesizers and analysts, taking input from customers, engineering, leaders, support, sales and turning into useful shapes - roadmaps, budgets, forecasts.
When a new product idea can be effectively prototyped in half a day, the emphasis shifts to creativity rather than organization. It’s unusual that creativity and organization are at the same level in the same person, which is going to mean disruption and change in PM organizations.
And, of course, the role of design changes radically. These are changes that are felt at the level of identity, and so need careful navigation by PM leaders.
I coach founders, CEOs and execs in rapidly scaling startups. Interested? Get in touch.