While you were busy lounging around this Labor Day weekend, LinkedIn thought leaders were grinding out takes on the latest insight from VC sage Paul Graham: the power of “founder mode.”

In a blog post this weekend, the Y Combinator co-founder coined the term to describe the startup equivalent of helicopter parenting, which he says is the right way to grow a venture. Graham thinks founders should be involved in the minutiae of running their businesses, as opposed to the conventional wisdom of delegating to experienced managers, or “manager mode.”

Graham said he was inspired to extol the virtues of founder mode after hearing Airbnb founder Brian Chesky speak to fellow entrepreneurs about how following advice to cede control to managers led to disastrous results.

Founder or flounder

Graham said Chesky’s testimony resonated with many fellow founders who felt “gaslit” into thinking that pro managers knew what was best for their startups. Instead, they often end up hiring “professional fakers” who lead their companies to peril.

While manager mode is the only method taught at business schools, founder mode is destined to go mainstream, according to Graham.

• Graham mentioned the famously hands-on Steve Jobs, who intentionally spent time with Apple’s rank and file at an annual retreat he held for the 100 most important people at the company, which included employees beyond upper management.
• Others credited Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal for the retailer’s legendary forever-$1.50 hotdogs, remembering that he once told then-CEO Craig Jelinek, “If you raise [the price of] the effing hot dog, I will kill you.”
• And some pointed out that Nvidia’s star founder, Jensen Huang, has 60 direct reports.

But many commentators came to the defense of MBAs-for-hire. Startupper Sam Gerstenzang retorted that the greatest founders, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Netflix’s Reed Hastings, got ahead by hiring talented people—who typically don’t like to be micromanaged. And Steve Jobs himself relied on Tim Cook to lead manufacturing, according to The Information founder Jessica Lessin.

Meanwhile…others lampooned founder mode as a buzzword for mansplainer tech bros.—SK

Speed training is what you make it—or, more realistically, what your shoes make it.

Are your sneakers propelling you forward with comfort, agility, and a lightweight feel? Or are they making every step a member of the ouch family?

If you’re in the latter camp or just wanna experience premium kicks, check out HOKA’s Mach X 2. These sneaks build on the fast, smooth ride Mach X audiences know and love with increased stack height, extra PEBA foam, and an upgraded winged-plate design in a lighter package. They’re also carbon-plated—hellooo quiet luxury.

The Mach X 2 represents the next evolution of speed training, ready to push any pace you’re working in.

Let the fall racing season begin.

Hochul’s former aide arrested for allegedly laundering millions from China. Linda Sun, a former top aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was arrested yesterday and charged with acting as an agent for the Chinese government. Per a federal indictment, Sun secretly “engaged in numerous political activities” on behalf of China while working as Hochul’s deputy chief of staff, including blocking Taiwanese government representatives from having access to New York state officials. In return, Sun and her husband, who was also arrested, allegedly received millions in kickbacks, which were used to buy the couple’s $4.1 million home on Long Island and a $2.1 million condo in Hawaii. Hochul’s office fired Sun and reported her to the authorities in March of last year after discovering evidence of misconduct.

A Russian airstrike in Ukraine killed more than 50. The strike, which hit a military institute and hospital and injured 271 others, was the deadliest airstrike in Ukraine this year, officials said. The attack underscored Ukraine’s lack of air defense systems, which President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly urged Western nations to supply. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Mongolia, where he should have been arrested, because Mongolia is a member of the International Criminal Court, which has a warrant out for Putin’s arrest. Instead, the country reportedly rolled out the red carpet for the Russian leader.

The Oasis reunion is putting Ticketmaster back in the hot seat. The British government said it plans to investigate the live event company’s practice of dynamic pricing after thousands of Oasis fans complained that they were unable to snag tickets to the “Wonderwall” band’s comeback tour, which went up hundreds of pounds as they waited in a virtual queue. The UK was already planning to look into exorbitant resale prices this fall, but will now add an inquest into dynamic pricing, too, as a result of the Oasis clusterbumble. The US Department of Justice sued Ticketmaster owner Live Nation earlier this year for allegedly monopolizing the concert industry.

TikTok creators assumed they outsmarted the largest bank in the country, but it turns out they just reinvented stealing. This weekend, a glitch allowed people to deposit bad checks at Chase’s ATMs for exorbitant amounts of money, have the credit appear in their accounts, and withdraw some of it before the bank caught the mistake.

The problem is that the free money “hack,” celebrated in several viral videos, is actually just a form of fraud called check kiting. The bank didn’t confirm how many customers participated in the viral scheme, and there’s a chance many videos and posts about users making stacks from the ATM error were skits or jokes. But it prompted Chase to release a statement telling customers not to try it. The bank said that depositing bad checks and then withdrawing the money is “fraud, plain and simple.”

• The harebrained scheme was especially ill-thought-out because you had to use your own Chase account, making it extremely easy for the bank to track down potential scammers.
• Some users posted follow-ups purporting to show their accounts with substantial negative balances after the bank rectified the problem.

Bottom line: Financial educators raced to social media to warn users that bank errors rarely end up benefiting the customer, unless you’re the star of Disney’s 1994 movie Blank Check.—MM

8% dividend opportunity: Monogram (Nasdaq: MGRM), known for their autonomous robotic surgical systems, completed a crowdfunded public offering and Nasdaq listing last year. What’s next? They just filed for FDA approval to commercialize their patented tech. Monogram’s currently offering preferred stock with an 8% dividend (in cash or kind) at $2.25/share. Their common shares closed as high as $3.44 in the past two weeks. Monogram currently plans to close the Series D Preferred offering on September 12, 2024.

You may find the person you’ll walk down the aisle with while walking down an aisle. Fed up with dating apps, singles in Spain are turning to supermarket-based matchmaking, hoping to find their special someone.

The trend, first popularized on TikTok, involves putting a pineapple upside down in one’s shopping cart between 7pm and 8pm at stores in the popular supermarket chain Mercadona. This move alerts other singles that you’re available and invites them to bump their cart into your cart (think of this as sending a “like”). If both people end up in the wine section, it’s a match.

Does it work? The trend is a nuisance for staff, who have to hide the pineapples for an hour each day. And last week, police were called to one store due to an unruly crowd, though they didn’t have to intervene. But it must be doing something, because it’s being copied: The German chain Lidl sent a message to its customers in Spain, inviting them to put a watermelon in their carts if they’re looking for love.

Zoom out: Apps like Tinder and Bumble are turning to IRL meetups as young people grow disillusioned with swiping and singles increasingly make their own offline events, such as speed dating or hobby-based events like run clubs.—CC

If you haven’t sat alone in the back corner of a restaurant and stuffed your face in perfect solitude, you’re part of a vanishingly small group. According to OpenTable, solo dining reservations in the US are up 29% over the last two years, while a June survey revealed that 60% of Americans have dined alone at some point in the last year. The combination of remote work and more people marrying later (and thus living alone) is likely contributing to the rise in independent feasts, but OpenTable CEO Debby Soo attributes it to something else. “There’s a broader movement of self-love and self-care and really...enjoying your own company,” Soo told the Associated Press.