Builders and Guardians

diegobasch.com

26 points·zohaibr··7 comments

Very good. I'm the only guardian in my project and I find myself constantly fighting off the shit that the builders are committing.

There's an irony here in that if there were no guardian, builders would (have to) be a lot more careful. But if there's a guardian around, he does genuinely guard the builders from harm as the project goes along.

Even after one year of being in this situation, I'm still not sure if having a guardian is a good or a bad thing.

I don't think there's really a good or bad judgement that can be made objectively. If the dynamic functions well in your organization, then what works works. If you can't take it, then obviously it's a problem... but it doesn't sound like this is the case.

Very similar to Robert X. Cringely's categories of Commandos, Infantry, Policemen in Accidental Empires.

True, it's one of those semi-obvious concepts that people keep rediscovering. It's funny how people get lost in the day-to-day and forget these things.

For some reason, I expected this to be a discussion about society at large, rather than just tech companies. It made me think of Keirsey types, actually. I wonder if it can be usefully generalized?

I didn't think of it outside the realm of startups. However, it's obvious that there are people who cannot stop themselves from building something, while others are more driven by preserving existing value for posterity (e.g. ancient art or buildings, perhaps even the environment). It's clear to me that society needs both.

Also, I think some of the best leaders are neither guardians nor builders by my definition. They are exceptionally good at inspiring others to take one course of action or the other as needed. Perhaps we could call them Charismatic Communicators?

> death by a thousand startups

Love that.

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