You know, I think the real insight in the piece is about the two startup founders where no one is really in charge. I think it's a good kick to remind founders that there needs to be a process for decision-making so you don't end up in stalemates.
I've found there doesn't necessarily have to be one founder who's in charge, just that founders have to be able to cooperate. If the founders can't work together, it's not likely to solve the problem to designate one as the boss.
Nor is the problem limited to groups of 2 founders. You can have groups of 2 that work together well and groups of 3 that bicker. I'm guessing the author just had a limited sample size.
Who doesn't have a small sample size when it comes to work? Even the most determined job-hopper can only work at a small number of companies long enough to really understand the dynamic. And even the most perceptive outside observer won't really know what it's like to have devoted a big chunk of one's life to a job.
There's an endless variety of human experience and we only get to live one fragment of it ourselves. That's the point of swapping stories.
I agree entirely. One of the great things about the Internet, which I believe we still don't appreciate fully, is the degree to which it allows us to step back and see the mosaic formed by these fragments.
The post in question is a good example. It's much more valuable when combined with the comments on HN, many of them by people with first-hand experience of startups, than it would have been as an isolated article in the print media.
Merely enabling us to collect and collate information we already "knew" is surprisingly valuable. The clearest example may be open source software, but I think we will see similar gains in almost all fields.
