Founding Myths are Pernicious Propaganda

Every startup has its founding myth, the story that it uses to help draw in and motivate employees, customers, and investors. In most cases, those myths were cultured years after the company's founding, and bear little relationship to reality. When you dig deeply into a company's true origins, what initially looked like the product of far-sighted genius deflates into a mix of insight and smart decisions meshed with a series of serendipitous events.​ This gap between myth and reality in no way diminishes the achievement of these companies and their teams, but it collapses our ability to learn the true lessons from those who made it and those who did not. If we can shift our story-telling from creation myths to capturing the collisions actually necessary to germinate greatness, we can better recognize what it will take to support it next time. Even better, it will allow us to pull forth those organizations not lucky enough to get all the draws, enabling our ecosystem to address neglected founders attacking neglected markets.​

Every startup has its founding myth, the story that it uses to help draw in and motivate employees, customers, and investors. In most cases, those myths were cultured years after the company's founding, and bear little relationship to reality. When you dig deeply into a company's true origins, what initially looked like the product of far-sighted genius deflates into a mix of insight and smart decisions meshed with a series of serendipitous events.​ This gap between myth and reality in no way diminishes the achievement of these companies and their teams, but it collapses our ability to learn the true lessons from those who made it and those who did not. If we can shift our story-telling from creation myths to capturing the collisions actually necessary to germinate greatness, we can better recognize what it will take to support it next time. Even better, it will allow us to pull forth those organizations not lucky enough to get all the draws, enabling our ecosystem to address neglected founders attacking neglected markets.​

Every startup has its founding myth, the story that it uses to help draw in and motivate employees, customers, and investors. In most cases, those myths were cultured years after the company's founding, and bear little relationship to reality. When you dig deeply into a company's true origins, what initially looked like the product of far-sighted genius deflates into a mix of insight and smart decisions meshed with a series of serendipitous events.​ This gap between myth and reality in no way diminishes the achievement of these companies and their teams, but it collapses our ability to learn the true lessons from those who made it and those who did not. If we can shift our story-telling from creation myths to capturing the collisions actually necessary to germinate greatness, we can better recognize what it will take to support it next time. Even better, it will allow us to pull forth those organizations not lucky enough to get all the draws, enabling our ecosystem to address neglected founders attacking neglected markets.​

Every startup has its founding myth, the story that it uses to help draw in and motivate employees, customers, and investors. In most cases, those myths were cultured years after the company's founding, and bear little relationship to reality. When you dig deeply into a company's true origins, what initially looked like the product of far-sighted genius deflates into a mix of insight and smart decisions meshed with a series of serendipitous events.​ This gap between myth and reality in no way diminishes the achievement of these companies and their teams, but it collapses our ability to learn the true lessons from those who made it and those who did not. If we can shift our story-telling from creation myths to capturing the collisions actually necessary to germinate greatness, we can better recognize what it will take to support it next time. Even better, it will allow us to pull forth those organizations not lucky enough to get all the draws, enabling our ecosystem to address neglected founders attacking neglected markets.​

Every startup has its founding myth, the story that it uses to help draw in and motivate employees, customers, and investors. In most cases, those myths were cultured years after the company's founding, and bear little relationship to reality. When you dig deeply into a company's true origins, what initially looked like the product of far-sighted genius deflates into a mix of insight and smart decisions meshed with a series of serendipitous events.​ This gap between myth and reality in no way diminishes the achievement of these companies and their teams, but it collapses our ability to learn the true lessons from those who made it and those who did not. If we can shift our story-telling from creation myths to capturing the collisions actually necessary to germinate greatness, we can better recognize what it will take to support it next time. Even better, it will allow us to pull forth those organizations not lucky enough to get all the draws, enabling our ecosystem to address neglected founders attacking neglected markets.​