Founder Fridays No. 172
Zuck's 20-year Mistake -- Make Yourself Redundant -- Hire Freeze Creates Founders
Happy Friday.
Introducing: Acquired Briefing
The Acquired podcast tells the stories and strategies of great companies. It’s the #1 technology show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, reaching over one million listeners per episode. The Wall Street Journal calls it “the business world’s favorite podcast.”
Episodes prioritize depth—they’re better described as “conversational audiobooks” than podcasts. Each one is packed with insights on how iconic companies actually built their businesses.
If you’re a fan, you know how valuable these episodes are. I’m such a believer that I launched a new newsletter—Acquired Briefing—as a way to share my detailed notes on each episode.
Over the next few months, I’ll be breaking down the most popular episodes of all time: Meta, IKEA, Rolex, Microsoft, Porsche, Starbucks, and more. These aren’t summaries—they’re deep dives into the strategic decisions, and playbooks that made these companies what they are today.
If you like Founder Fridays, you’ll love these company strategy breakdowns. The insights are directly applicable to how you build and grow your own business.
Sign up for Acquired Briefing below – Don’t miss the upcoming deep dives.
20-year Mistake
At an Acquired live event in 2024, Mark Zuckerberg dropped a confession most founders miss: his biggest regret isn’t moving too slow on content moderation, it’s accepting blame that wasn’t his to own. When the 2016 election backlash hit, Meta tried to fix problems by taking full corporate responsibility, but they’d fundamentally misdiagnosed what was actually theirs to fix versus what was political scapegoating. The tactical move: before you publicly own any crisis, force your team to draw a hard line between “this is our failure” and “we’re being blamed for a systemic problem we don’t control.” Get that wrong, and you hand critics a narrative weapon they’ll use against you for a couple decade, exactly what happened to Meta’s brand until Zuckerberg finally pushed back with funded research and clearer principles. He called it his 20-year mistake. Acquired Briefing (16 minutes)
Make Yourself Redundant
The instinct to remove obstacles for your team feels like good management, but it turns you into an overworked single point of failure who leaves behind people with no idea how to handle problems themselves. The real job isn’t clearing friction for your team, it’s making yourself redundant by coaching people to solve problems, connecting them directly to stakeholders, and gradually handing off your own responsibilities. This week, audit one task you’re doing “for” your team: instead of handling it, teach the method, explain the organizational values driving the decision, and create a direct link between your report and whoever they need to work with. You build a team that survives your departure, earns you more respect when you drop back into technical work, and frees you to actually scale instead of becoming the bottleneck everyone quietly resents. Entropic Thoughts (4 minutes)
Hire Freeze Creates Founders
When tech hiring collapsed in 2022-23, grad school entrepreneurship spiked—an inverse relationship that flips the “safe job first” playbook. The data shows would-be employees said “screw it, I’ll build something” when offer letters dried up, with tech startups dominating the straight-from-school ventures. This matters because constrained hiring markets don’t kill ambition—they redirect it into company creation, and the people most likely to start businesses during downturns are the ones who would’ve been your competitors’ early employees. This week, rethink your talent strategy: instead of only recruiting, start tracking promising side projects and indie hackers in your space—they’re your acquisition targets or future competitors, not just potential hires. You’ll spot competitive threats 12-18 months earlier and potentially acqui-hire teams that have already validated product-market fit on their own dime. It’s Time to Build (3 minutes)
Founder FAQ: What is GDPR and Why is it Important?
If you think GDPR only matters when you’re “bigger” or “really going after Europe,” you’re wrong—collecting a single email from an EU citizen triggers full compliance requirements, including potential fines up to 4% of global revenue. The regulation isn’t about your size or intent; it’s about whether you touch EU personal data at all, and if you’re online, you almost certainly do. This week, audit every place you collect data (signup forms, analytics, payment processors) and map which vendors touch EU data—if you use Stripe, Mailchimp, or any third-party service, you’re a “data controller” legally responsible for their compliance too. Getting this right now prevents catastrophic fines later and builds the data hygiene that scales: clean databases, clear consent flows, and the ability to instantly retrieve or delete user data when requested. Westaway (8 minutes)
Startup Funding Guides
I’ve put together a series of guides to equip founders to excel at fundraising. These guides break down the deal term-by-term and give you negotiation tips so that you can speak to investors with confidence.
Convertible Note: Guide / Video
Built By Founders for Founders
I co-founded my first startup with friends in 2007. As a founder, I struggled to find an affordable law firm that was designed for early-stage startups. So, I created one myself. Westaway is a law firm built by founders, for founders. If you’re ready to ditch the outdated billable hour model and try a new approach to legal services that saves you time and money, let’s talk. I’d love to jump on a 15-minute call to show you how we can make legal work smooth, fast and cost-effective for your startup. Schedule a call with me now.
Great curation of actionable insights. The redundancy framework is spot on, I've seen too many managers become bottlenecks while thinking they're being helpful. One thing worth adding: when teaching instead of doing, document the decisionprocess in a shared space so the team can reference it later without asking again. Saved me countless hours when Iwas scaling a product team and everyone kept asking the same questions about prioritization.