Dennis H. Lewis tells founders they can't hide behind engineers or opaque tech. Not understanding your product leaves you handcuffed to costly choices and existential risk. Know what you're building and refuse decisions you don't understand.
Chapters
The very first rule that you have to take into account as a founder, you do not have the right to abdicate your responsibility of understanding what's going on in your business. That's not optional. Even if you're not tech savvy, you need to understand what you're building. You need to understand the obligations you're taking on. You need to understand the foreseeable consequences of the tech decisions that are happening in your company, because in the end, it's your company. Don't let anybody hide behind words that you don't understand. Hide behind technologies that seem mystical or seem too complicated. Don't be afraid to say, no, I'm not going there until I understand. Because if you don't, you will end up down the road in shackles. You will end up down the road handcuffed to technical decisions that you didn't understand, but you made. And you may have made them just by looking the other way. Right? Okay. Just by saying, oh, Tony's got my back on that. He'll do what's right. Well, he'll do what he thought was right at that moment and what he thought was best for him at that moment as well. Right. You're the sole. As the real sole founder of a company, it's your duty. It's your duty to know what's going on. And, you know, if it blows up down the road, pointing fingers isn't going to solve anything. Saying, you know, so and so made really bad decisions, and now we're going to, you know, pay the price of not innovating for three years while we sort this out. That's fine. You can. You can say that till Christmas, but your customers are going to say, okay, well, we'll see you down the road. Right. And. And it will. It could be the end of your company.
