"Always stay close to something that grows. Be it a child, a project, an idea, or a new day."
— Anna Maria Ortese
A founder is neither merely a visionary nor a mere executor of a preordained plan. They are explorers of the unknown, astronomers gazing into the void, trying to fix a point in space. They begin with an intuition, a single coordinate, but their work does not end in defining it. They must foresee its trajectory, understand the forces that will shape its orbit, and calculate the perturbations that may divert it from its course.
And it is precisely here that their care for growth manifests.
A founder exercises a subtle form of hybris, a defiance against the unpredictable. They believe they can impose order upon something that, by its nature, resists control: the market, user reactions, the inertia of the system. Yet, this hybris is not blind arrogance; it is the very engine of creation. Without the audacity to believe in a vision and the power to shape it into reality, no startup would ever be born.
But therein also lies the seed of their potential downfall. Hybris can be a driving force or a fatal flaw, depending on the founder’s ability to recognize their limits. The history of innovation is littered with failed ventures led by those who mistook determination for obstinacy, vision for deafness to the signals around them.
Empathic Leadership as an Antidote to Hybris
This is why empathic leadership is not an accessory virtue but the true counterweight to a founder’s hybris. A leader who listens to their team, to the market as a living organism, to the inevitability of pivoting. is a leader who has transformed their hybris into creative responsibility.
It is not about relinquishing vision but accepting that vision is not a monolith—it is a body in motion, constantly shaped by the world around it.
Like a planet forming in the gravitational field of a larger force, a startup does not follow a straight path. It moves within an intricate web of influences, and the founder must learn to read and harmonize these forces:
- The market, as the dominant gravitational pull, attracting or repelling the initial idea.
- The team, as a system of satellites, stabilizing the structure but also capable of causing destabilization if misaligned.
- The product, as the vessel of adaptation, molded by user feedback and external forces.
If a founder manages to balance their visionary impulse with adaptability, their startup will not be lost in the void. Their hybris will not be an act of destruction but one of creation.
The Founder as a Creator of Meaning
Jean-Paul Sartre taught us that existence precedes essence: nothing has an inherent meaning, but through our choices and actions, we define what something is. The same applies to startups: what begins as a vague intuition, a rough idea, only becomes real through action, through interaction with the market, through failures and the small victories of daily resilience.
To be a founder is to inhabit doubt, to move within an uncharted land without a map, to accept that what one is creating will never be perfect but must be shaped by the hands that guide it and the eyes that observe it. It is an act of both courage and responsibility, for each decision carves a path, and each hesitation can erase it.
A startup is born in the void, like a thought suspended in midair, and it takes shape only when it collides with reality. The founder, like an artist, must know when to pursue their vision and when to let the raw material before them shape itself.
The Rhythm of Growth: Listening to the Market, Listening to People
Yet, a founder is not merely a creator; they are also a listener. No idea thrives in isolation. The market is not an inert canvas where one can simply paint their vision: it is a living, breathing system that reacts, resists, and responds. A founder who ignores this dialogue, who retreats into the illusion of their own genius, risks leading their venture into stagnation or irrelevance.
This is where Carol Gilligan’s ethics of care offers a profound counterpoint to Sartre’s existentialist freedom. Where Sartre emphasizes individual responsibility, Gilligan reminds us that true leadership is woven through relationships. A founder does not command from above, they co-create. They are not the sovereign of an idea but its custodian, tending to it as one nurtures something living, adjusting its course in response to the voices around them.
A startup grows not just through the force of its founder’s will, but through the dialogue they foster with their team, with their users, with the ecosystem in which they operate. To lead is not just to envision but to listen, to recognize that in the interplay of vision and adaptation, true creation emerges.
This means three things:
Listening to co-founders and team members
- No project grows in solitude. An idea may be born in a single mind, but it only becomes reality when nourished by collaboration.
Listening to the market
- The best startups are not built in abstraction but in continuous dialogue with those who will use them. A founder must be ready to change course, to pivot, to rethink their project with humility and intelligence.
Creating an environment of trust
- A startup is not just technology or a product; it is a human microcosm. Without a culture rooted in transparency, sharing, and motivation, even the brightest idea will fade like a flame starved of oxygen.
The Startup as an Act of Faith
Everything that grows carries within it a promise: the future. Every startup is an act of faith in tomorrow, a wager that something new can find its place in the world.
To be a founder is to accept that one's project will change, that it will never be exactly as imagined, but therein lies its beauty. Like a child who grows into an adult, a startup transforms, moves away from its original form, and takes on unexpected directions.
The founder’s role is not to resist this growth but to guide it with care, like a gardener tending to a plant, never forcing it into an artificial shape.
And it is here that their hybris is tested, not in the assertion of power, but in the courage to believe in their vision without becoming imprisoned by it.
To gaze at one’s creation like an astronomer watches the sky, with the wonder of one who understands that the universe is not meant to be dominated, but to be understood.
