The Best Companies Are Dictatorships

The piece argues that the most effective tech companies are run by benevolent dictators-founders who make clear, unilateral decisions-because this eliminates endless debate and accelerates execution. It frames the founder as a visionary who knows exactly what they want and expects the team to build it, contrasting this with the paralysis of democratic decision-making.

The opening anecdote describes a founder who ripped a polished PRD in half, sketched three boxes on a whiteboard, and left the room. Senior engineers were left to turn those boxes into reality. The author contrasts this with a prior experience at a "collaborative" company where eight executives spent an hour debating priorities and produced nothing but calendar invites. The speed and clarity of the founder's directive is presented as a competitive advantage.

Further examples reinforce the point: a CPO who left a unicorn after misunderstanding the founder's need for an executor; a founder obsessing over H1 vs H2 tags who delivered a landing page that converted at three times industry standards; Enzo Ferrari tweaking a fender curve himself. These unreasonable details, the author claims, often translate into outsized product performance because the vision lives in the minutiae.

The article concedes that not every dictator is valuable. The best combine unreasonable standards with genuine care for their people, avoiding the tyranny that crushes spirit. Employees crave the product sense of leaders like Brian Chesky while also wanting their voices heard, but the piece argues that true impact comes from aligning with a founder whose obsession matches the employee's ambition.

For technical leaders, the takeaway is to seek clear decision authority, either by joining a founder who can dictate with purpose or by building a venture where you set the vision yourself. Embracing decisive leadership and recognizing the trade-off between democratic deliberation and rapid execution can unlock higher impact for teams and products.