The founder is a stem cell
Originally written in Chinese. Translated with AI, reviewed by Gary. Read the Chinese original →
Today I listened to Ben share, and he used a brilliant metaphor to explain what Founder mode is.
He said, if you think of a company as a human body:
The CEO is the brain, responsible for thinking about direction and making decisions.
The CFO is the heart, controlling cash flow and making sure the company stays alive.
And the founder?
The founder is a stem cell.
When I heard that, I laughed. The metaphor is so precise.
A stem cell can become any organ in the body. It can repair itself, and wherever there's a problem, that's where it goes.
If it finds cancer cells in the body, it doesn't hesitate. It destroys them.
A founder must have that ability and awareness:
Wherever there's a problem, go yourself;
Whichever department is rotting, become its leader for a while;
When you find someone toxic, fire them yourself, without waiting for an HR report or a dashboard alert.
Founder isn't a title. It's a state, an instinct, a habit of "wherever there's a problem, there I am".
This is especially true early on, when nothing is stable and everything is an experiment. A founder who only wants to be a strategist, hiding in the office in meetings, is beyond saving.
You have to be like a stem cell, active in every corner.
In the morning you might be customer service, at noon you're dealing with the warehouse, in the afternoon you're in a product meeting, and at night you're in the live-stream room talking to users. You're the most flexible person in the company, and its most alert system.
You won't necessarily be a stem cell forever. Once the company has a mature organisation, you can gradually focus on certain functions. But remember: from the moment you become a founder, this is the biggest difference between you and every other role.
You are a stem cell. You must live on the front line, solve problems, fight off the cancer, and repair the system.
This isn't romance. It's reality.