When someone, especially a co-founder, fundamentally disagrees with the CEO's strategic direction, should they commit anyway or leave the company?

David Lieb · Sep 21, 2022 · hedged

His refusal to disagree-and-commit — continuing to build the private photo tool and calling valley contacts with Larry Page's ear — was at least part of why Google reversed course and built Google Photos instead of pursuing the Google+ social track

He had conviction Google Photos would succeed, and being an acquired founder with no Google career ambitions let him take the risk of not taking no for an answer

Scope: he says at least part of the reason

50:24 20 Product: The No 1 Metric You Need To Look at When Building Product | Why the Best in Product Have No Domain Experience | Why You Should Not Hire From Incumbents & The Difference Between Good vs Great PMs with David Lieb, Visiting Group Partner @ Y Comb

Harry Stebbings · Nov 22, 2023

'Disagree and commit' doesn't really work — someone cannot give their life to something they disagree with

Full commitment of that intensity is incompatible with genuine disagreement

17:56 20VC: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play, Why Apple Will Win in an AI World, Why Google is the Most Vulnerable Incumbent, Will LLMs Be Commoditised, Which Startups Are Thin vs Thick Wrappers on Top of LLMs with Jeff Seibert, Founder @ Digits

Jeff Seibert · Nov 22, 2023

In a pivot, disagree-and-commit is unproductive; it's better to shrink to a smaller team of people who genuinely believe

The hallmark of great founders is being able to convince the team and hold their trust to go all in; someone merely committing while disagreeing won't be productive

Scope: specific to the pivot / new-direction scenario

18:07 20VC: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play, Why Apple Will Win in an AI World, Why Google is the Most Vulnerable Incumbent, Will LLMs Be Commoditised, Which Startups Are Thin vs Thick Wrappers on Top of LLMs with Jeff Seibert, Founder @ Digits

Harry Stebbings · Dec 11, 2023

Disagree-and-commit doesn't work for co-founders on large strategic decisions

If you genuinely disagree, you can't summon the commitment required — working until 1AM, missing a friend's birthday

Scope: specific to co-founders and to large strategic questions

13:09 20VC: Why Founders Should Take as Many VC Meetings as Possible, Should Founders Meet Associates, How to Get Intros to the Best VCs, How To Extract the Most Value From Your Investors, Why Post IPO Operators Are the Best Angels with Sam Corcos @ Levels

Sam Corcos · Dec 11, 2023

If you can't get behind the CEO's chosen path, the right answer is to leave the company

Starting a company isn't a suicide pact or a lifetime commitment; if you've lost confidence in the CEO you're better off working elsewhere

13:25 Leaving is the right answer when you cant get behind the ceos chosen path

Glen Coates · Mar 8, 2023

When commitment fails, it is often the leadership's fault for not explaining the reasoning — 'we're going over here, here's why, let's do this together' is quite different from 'we're going over here, just do it'

People need the why to genuinely commit; absent that, either leadership has failed or the person disagrees with how the company is run and should leave

27:45 Explaining the why is required for genuine commitment otherwise leadership failed