Some stories are labeled “divinely inspired.” A single founder had a special connection to the divine that you don’t have and can never have.
Startup founders tell similar stories — just without claiming divine authority. They see a future that doesn’t exist yet and invite others to help build it. The early team and investors act like apostles, helping the founder tell the story to the next circle and the next.
The Spectrum of Founder Delusion
From a career working with founders across industries — computer companies, internet service providers, data centers, virtual worlds, education, healthcare, consumer brands — a spectrum emerges. At one end: “we have a product people want.” At the other end: “we will change the world.”
The most impactful companies occupy the far end. They have to. Nobody follows a small vision across a desert.
Founders of startups — whether startup companies, startup schools, startup governments, or startup religions — all rely on the ones who came before them. They recruit apostles. They install a boot sequence in their organization.
Big Visions We Loved
- “To connect everyone to an online world that improves the human condition.”
- “A global community of individuals empowered to pursue the work they love.”
- “To accelerate humanity’s transition to sustainable energy.”
- “To reinvent venture financing for the 21st century.”
- “To help everyone see their business better.”
The last one is ours. Its foundation is the Fourth Statement and the system that delivers it.
See the poems A Startup Religion and A Little System.
From Zen and the Art of [nothing] by John Zdanowski & Jeff Abrams, Chapter 11.