I have about 6 feet of clearance this morning, so this post can get through, but the fucking high horse has got to go. Sorry, but I don't have space to let it in.
There’s no air cover for startups. You don’t have backup troops. It’s just you versus the world. So naturally, if your product or service sucks, then you die. You can’t just look like you’re doing stuff. You actually have to make it, and almost totally on your own.
Correction. If your VCs don't like you, then you die. Even if your company succeeds, you die if the VCs don't like you. (Just as, in a large corporation, you can do your job very well but have your project taken over because the higher-ups don't like you. Which is, let's be cynical and honest, something we like even less than having the project fail.) If your VCs like you, then they will keep funding you and, if your company fails according to market forces, they'll line you up with an executive position at a portfolio company while you recharge your batteries.
If doing things that aren’t effective don’t get you fired, then what does? Usually making mistakes that make your boss look bad. Big organizations are just groups of people, and people sure like to talk shit. The one thing you can’t do is look like a bozo. It’s fine to work really hard to no effect (hey, you worked hard!), but if you become a social liability, you’re donezo.
The last time I checked, small organizations were also groups of people. And the VC-funded world is just a postmodern corporation in which the VCs have set themselves up as the actual executive team while "founders" are mid-ranking product managers (who might get 8-figure bonuses, and promotion to the investor ranks, if they totally rape the odds... but are, for the time being, still in the second tier and forced to manage up into the man-child oligarchy on Sand Hill Road).
Corporate VPs don't have a monopoly on reputation management at the expense of the corporate good.
Founders care more about their "personal brand" than their companies, and I don't begrudge them for this at all. Fuck, I also care more (far, far more) about my career and reputation than whatever company I work at, at a given time. I take no issue with self-interest, and I don't even necessarily think the "disposable company" model of the postmodern VC-istan meta-company is the wrong one. I just can't fucking stand the high horse. You (rhetorical "you"; I'm not trying to be confrontational to any specific person) fuckers in VC and in founder-land aren't much worse than the existing corporate elite, but you're not better either. You fucking are the corporate elite. Accept it. The fact that you wear sandals instead of a suit when you lay people off doesn't make you a better person.