Founder work has two modes
This piece is an AI-assisted synthesis of my personal notes on a working theory of founder work: that there are two modesāone optimized for doing the most important things (Pareto mode), and one optimized for avoiding catastrophe (Integrity mode).
Iāve come to realize that, especially for writing with a single central claim, large language models are often better at elaboration and structure than I am on a first pass.
I plan to share more work in this form. Itās the most faithful way Iāve found to quickly turn rough thoughts into something coherent, and I donāt yet know of a better place for these notes to live. Going forward, Iāll always indicate whether a piece is AI-assisted or fully authored, so you can decide whether to skim or to read it as something written slowly and deliberately, as my past writing has been.
Abstract
Founder work is often described as a search for leverage: identifying the few actions that disproportionately determine outcomes. This description, while accurate in early and exploratory phases, fails to explain large classes of founder activity that are linear, exhaustive, and resistant to optimization.
In this paper, we propose a two-mode theory of founder work: Pareto Mode, which maximizes upside through power-law leverage, and Integrity Mode, which minimizes downside through comprehensive coverage. We argue that these modes are incompatible in simultaneous execution, must be temporally separated, and that a core founder responsibility is explicit mode arbitration. Failure to recognize and declare the active mode leads to miscoordination, execution slippage, and organizational stress. The framework provides a lens for understanding phase transitions in startups and for designing appropriate operating cadences.
1. Introduction
Founders are frequently advised to āfocus on what matters most,ā implicitly assuming that work admits a Pareto-optimal structure. While this advice is correct in many circumstances, it breaks down in later phases of organizational development, where success is constrained not by opportunity discovery but by system integrity.
Empirically, founders report periods in which no single action dominates outcomes, yet failure to execute on multiple parallel obligations leads to catastrophic loss (e.g., customer churn, regulatory disqualification, or loss of credibility). These periods are often experienced as unusually stressful, misaligned with founder identity, and difficult to manage.
This paper proposes a theory that explains these experiences as a consequence of switching between two distinct optimization regimes.
2. Two Modes of Founder Work
We define two primary modes of founder work.
2.1 Pareto Mode
Objective: Maximize outcome per unit effort.
Pareto Mode assumes a power-law distribution of impact. A small number of actions dominate outcomes, and the cost of neglecting lower-impact tasks is negligible relative to the upside gained from focusing on high-leverage work.
Characteristics
Non-linear returns
High ambiguity and exploration
Tolerance for sloppiness elsewhere
Strong reliance on intuition and synthesis
Examples
Selecting an initial market wedge
Securing a key design partner
Crafting a compelling narrative or demo
Identifying a single architectural abstraction that collapses complexity
In Pareto Mode, the guiding question is:
What single action, if done well, makes many other concerns irrelevant?
2.2 Integrity Mode
Objective: Minimize the probability of disqualifying failure.
Integrity Mode assumes that outcomes are constrained by weakest links rather than dominant actions. Here, failure is not gradual but discrete: missing any critical requirement invalidates success elsewhere.
Characteristics
Linear, checklist-driven work
Low creativity, high discipline
High coordination cost
Emotionally aversive to founders trained in leverage-seeking
Examples
Compliance (e.g., SOC 2)
Multi-tenant correctness
Contractual and delivery obligations
Documentation and operational hygiene during scaling
In Integrity Mode, the guiding question is:
What failure would cause us to be fired, sued, or lose trust?
3. Mutual Incompatibility of Modes
A central claim of this paper is that Pareto Mode and Integrity Mode are temporally incompatible. Attempting to operate both simultaneously leads to predictable dysfunction.
Pareto behavior during Integrity Mode produces sloppiness and dropped obligations.
Integrity behavior during Pareto Mode produces over-coordination and lost leverage.
The cognitive and organizational requirements of each mode differ sufficiently that partial execution of both yields suboptimal outcomes for each.
Put more simply:
Pareto Mode is about winning.
Integrity Mode is about not losing.
Optimization requires mode selection, not weighted averaging.
4. Mode Arbitration as Founder Responsibility
We argue that a core, under-articulated founder responsibility is mode arbitration: explicitly determining which optimization regime governs the organization at a given time.
This responsibility includes:
Declaring the current mode
Aligning team expectations to that mode
Suppressing behaviors appropriate to the opposite mode
Failure to arbitrate mode manifests as:
repeated re-litigation of decisions,
miscommunication and context loss,
team anxiety and execution drift.
Importantly, mode arbitration itself is high-leverage work. A small amount of clarity prevents widespread inefficiency.
5. Phase Transitions in Startups
Startups naturally transition between modes as they mature.
Early-stage companies predominantly operate in Pareto Mode. As customers, regulators, and partners accumulate, Integrity Mode becomes periodically mandatory.
These transitions are often experienced as identity crises by founders, who may misinterpret the demands of Integrity Mode as a loss of effectiveness or creativity. In reality, they reflect increased system coupling and responsibility.
Integrity Mode is typically episodic. Successful execution restores the conditions under which Pareto Mode can resume at a higher level of abstraction.
6. Implications for Practice
This framework suggests several practical interventions:
Explicitly time-box Integrity Mode phases
Reduce exploratory discussions during Integrity Mode
Design operating cadences appropriate to the active mode
Normalize the emotional difficulty of Integrity Mode for founders
Most importantly, founders should resist the urge to justify all work in Pareto terms. Some work is valuable precisely because it prevents loss rather than creates upside.
7. Conclusion
Founder work is not a single optimization problem but a sequence of regime shifts between incompatible objectives. Pareto Mode enables growth. Integrity Mode enables survival. Both are necessary. Confusing them is costly.