founder's mentality
insights, articles, musings and resources to help founders and builders cultivate a healthy mindset and get unstuck
sari and
founder's mentality
Parenting is the best part of my life. What I have re-learned from it is that real joy is in the small moments. The first time she said “mama” was a spectacular moment, but it is in delighting in her coy smile as I change her diaper that I find beauty. You have to love the process of your labor, not the outcome of it. That has been true in making... See more
12 Months a Father, 6 Months a Founder
relatable from Evan Armstrong. “Companies are not sterle laboratories of capitalist science”
Fantastic startup advice from Marc Andreessen 15 years ago. https://t.co/slnUkIGB5j
Did Steve jobs ever say, "Hey, I want to make a $100 million company?" That was never in discussion. He said, "I want to make insanely great products. Then I want to get really good at marketing because I want everybody in the world to have an Apple device, and the way to do that is to get really good at marketing."
Patrick O'Shaughnessy • Passion & Pain
Founder's Mentality℠ and the paths to sustainable growth
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“I can’t see a way through”, said the boy.
“Can you see your next step?"
“Yes”
“Just take that”, said the horse.
- The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse @charliemackesy
Absolutely excellent piece.
Throughout history, new technologies have opened new fields of expression and expanded what's possible. Every time a new technology came in, at least half were left behind loving the old craft or worrying about the future. Those who embrace the discomfort, understand how the tool can be wielded will continue to create novel ideas and change culture, With the printing press, those who mastered textual literacy created profound societal impact. In those early days, this literacy was an essential differentiator.
Just as the printing press democratized knowledge creation, AI is commoditizing access to intelligence and with it redefining technical execution. This is now widely accepted. AI can generate endless ‘perfect’ outputs, and its reasoning capabilities will only expand. Design’s tools will change but design’s essence remains distinctly human: creation guided by feeling & relationships rather than pure logic, and the judgment to know what’s worth creating.
Design literacy—combining curiosity, studied curation, personal conviction, and craft—will become as vital as verbal literacy.
This way of seeing and thinking becomes a new differentiator. It’s a new type of intelligence and design that will separate those who thrive from those who fade into the noise. I see this type of design everywhere in my work with founders, engineers, salespeople, and investors—they are all designers in their own right. It is innate—it just needs to be unlocked.
The best founders already understand this. In a world where anyone can build, they know what to build, who it’s for, and why it must exist.