
Builders and Guardians - zohaibr
http://diegobasch.com/builders-and-guardians
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rheide
Very good. I'm the only guardian in my project and I find myself constantly
fighting off the shit that the builders are committing.

There's an irony here in that if there were no guardian, builders would (have
to) be a lot more careful. But if there's a guardian around, he does genuinely
guard the builders from harm as the project goes along.

Even after one year of being in this situation, I'm still not sure if having a
guardian is a good or a bad thing.

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saraid216
I don't think there's really a good or bad judgement that can be made
objectively. If the dynamic functions well in your organization, then what
works works. If you can't take it, then obviously it's a problem... but it
doesn't sound like this is the case.

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geori
Very similar to Robert X. Cringely's categories of Commandos, Infantry,
Policemen in Accidental Empires.

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diego
True, it's one of those semi-obvious concepts that people keep rediscovering.
It's funny how people get lost in the day-to-day and forget these things.

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saraid216
For some reason, I expected this to be a discussion about society at large,
rather than just tech companies. It made me think of Keirsey types, actually.
I wonder if it can be usefully generalized?

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diego
I didn't think of it outside the realm of startups. However, it's obvious that
there are people who cannot stop themselves from building something, while
others are more driven by preserving existing value for posterity (e.g.
ancient art or buildings, perhaps even the environment). It's clear to me that
society needs both.

Also, I think some of the best leaders are neither guardians nor builders by
my definition. They are exceptionally good at inspiring others to take one
course of action or the other as needed. Perhaps we could call them
Charismatic Communicators?

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jmathai
> death by a thousand startups

Love that.

