[intalentive]

This mirrors the military doctrine of "mission tactics" which entrusts subordinates with wide latitude in executing orders. But it requires a high degree of alignment and competence, which explains why YC focuses on founders over product or idea.

This makes sense in a dynamic environment with sensitive local conditions and "network lag" in the chain of command. But in more static or settled market environments it may be wiser (for investors) to focus elsewhere and restrict founder autonomy. We see this pretty commonly with successful founders who get "phased out" and replaced with more experienced managers.

I wonder how much this sort of "distributed decision-making" has been formalized and studied.

[Ozzie_osman]

I'm a huge fan of Mission Command. If you want to read more, I'd recommend the Army's official doc on it: https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/ARN34403-ADP_6-... (it's 110 pages but you really only need to read Chapter 1).

This was eye-opening. I used to think militaries were completely centralized and top-down, but a friend who was an officer explained this to me and pointed me to the literature. It was fascinating and educating to understand the principles behind Mission Command being successful as a method (competence, mutual trust, shared understanding, etc).

[chinathrow]

> Commanders, staffs, and subordinates ensure their decisions and actions comply with applicable U.S., international, and, in some cases, host-nation laws and regulations. Commanders at all levels ensure their Soldiers operate in accordance with the Army Ethic, the law of war, and the rules of engagement. (See FM 27-10 for a discussion of the law of war.)

Not sure this was followed very recently.

[Hendrikto]

> I used to think militaries were completely centralized and top-down

It is my understanding that the Russians do it that way, which does not seem to work out great for them.

[aussieguy1234]

The YPG, an armed anarchist military group, defeated Islamic State in North East Syria and more or less founded their own country without a traditional military command structure. Instead they had loosely coordinated teams.

[notpushkin]

For those outside the US: https://web.archive.org/web/20250202000359/https://armypubs....

[baxtr]

There is a good book on that subject by Stephen Bungay called "The Art of Action". He explains the concept of Auftragstaktik. Great book, although a bit hard to read.

[Grosvenor]

There's also Franz Osinga's book Scince, strategy, and war, which covers John Boyd's work in detail.

[kjkjadksj]

If it focused on founders over product or idea you’d see some actual heterogeneity in the YC set. It has been a few months since I last skimmed the startup lists but it seemed like 95% were LLM for X companies.

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

Commander's intent is part of the five paragraph order

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_paragraph_order

[vasco]

"Nelsonic doctrine", for whoever wants to google this concept.

> In war the first principle is to disobey orders. Any fool can obey an order. He ought to have gone on, had he the slightest Nelsonic temperament in him.