March 26, 2026

๐—™๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ป๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ ๐˜ƒ๐˜€ ๐—ฃ๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐—ณ๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜€๐—ถ๐—ผ๐—ป๐—ฎ๐—น ๐—–๐—˜๐—ข? ๐—ง๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜โ€™๐˜€ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐˜„๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—พ๐˜‚๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜๐—ถ๐—ผ๐—ป.

Paul Graham recently reignited the debate around โ€œfounder mode vs manager mode.โ€

But in European scale-ups, the real issue is good old execution.

Very few founders in Europe have run โ‚ฌ100M+ revenue businesses before.
At the same time, replacing them with a โ€œprofessional CEOโ€ is often a strategic mistake.

Because:
โ€ข Nothing replaces the founderโ€™s passion and resilience
โ€ข European corporate executives often lack entrepreneurial experience
โ€ข Many โ€œprofessional managersโ€ have learnt to manage upwards โ€” rather than doing

So what actually works?

Not replacement. Augmentation...
โœ”๏ธStrengthen the founder with:
โœ”๏ธA strong Chair
โœ”๏ธIndependent NEDs
โœ”๏ธAdvisors and coaches
โœ”๏ธCarefully selected operators who have scaled VC-backed companies before

The key is compatibility: Energy. Work ethic. Resilience. Action-orientation.

Scaling up is not about switching modes. Itโ€™s about building the right ecosystem around the founder.
In this new snippet, I unpack what really works in practice.

Watch the full video here.

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