I sold Harmonizely in 2021. For a year I worked on another startup and mostly drifted, trying to figure out what I actually wanted next. Then I took a regular job. Not because I failed — because I chose to. Stable income, space to think, time to build the next thing without betting everything on it.
But going from founder to employee comes with a strange side effect: you see the game differently.
The lens you can’t unsee
When you’ve run your own thing, you notice what others take for granted.
You see how much energy goes into alignment that a small team doesn’t need. You see decisions that would take five minutes take five meetings. You see people optimizing for perception because the system rewards it.
Large organizations have constraints that small ones don’t. The processes exist for reasons.
But you notice. You can’t not notice.
The theater
Status meetings that could be a message. Documentation written not to help the next person but to prove you did the thing. Ten people weighing in on a decision one person should make. Performance reviews where you write paragraphs to justify what everyone already knows.
None of it is evil. It’s just friction. Friction you didn’t have when it was just you and the work.
The advantage
That lens is useful, in a strange way.
You know that most work drama isn’t existential — because you’ve seen actually existential. You don’t panic when priorities shift — you’ve pivoted harder. You can see the business logic behind decisions that frustrate others, because you’ve made those calls yourself.
You’re also less attached. Not checked out — just clear on what this is. A trade. Your skills for their money. A good trade, chosen freely.
That clarity is rare. Most people are either fully bought in or quietly resentful. You’re neither.
The trap
There’s a risk in this.
It’s easy to slide into thinking everything is stupid. To roll your eyes at every process. To assume you know better because you’ve “been a founder.”
But some things that look useless actually hold the org together in ways you don’t see. You ran a team of five. This is a team of five hundred. Different physics.
The other direction
The lens cuts both ways.
The longer I’m here, the more I notice things I did badly that bigger orgs do better. Documentation I skipped. Decisions I made too fast. Hiring I rushed. Feedback I avoided, because no one tells the CEO they’re wrong.
Being a founder taught me a lot. It also let me get away with things I shouldn’t have. I’m only seeing some of those now, from inside a system that wouldn’t have let them happen.
The thing you don’t say
The hardest part isn’t seeing it. It’s not saying it.
You sit in a meeting watching something play out you’ve seen before. You know how it ends. You don’t say anything, because nobody wants the founder card thrown on the table. Even when you’re right. Especially when you’re right.
So you watch. Sometimes you nudge. Mostly you just watch.
I don’t know what to do with the lens, exactly. It hasn’t made me a better employee or a better founder. It’s just made me someone who notices.
Some days that feels useful. Most days it just sits there.