my website at https://anirudh.fi
pages/blog: the founder box
Signed-off-by: Anirudh Oppiliappan <anirudh@tangled.org>
+95
-2
+14
-1
input.css
+14
-1
input.css
···
111
111
}
112
112
113
113
.footnotes > ol li p {
114
-
@apply m-0 leading-4;
114
+
@apply m-0 leading-7;
115
115
}
116
116
117
117
.footnote-return {
···
146
146
@apply block;
147
147
@apply mx-auto my-[10px_auto_4px_auto];
148
148
@apply rounded-md;
149
+
}
150
+
151
+
figure {
152
+
@apply my-6;
153
+
img {
154
+
@apply mb-0 my-0;
155
+
}
156
+
figcaption {
157
+
@apply text-sm text-gray dark:text-dark-gray text-center mt-2;
158
+
a {
159
+
@apply text-gray dark:text-dark-gray;
160
+
}
161
+
}
149
162
}
150
163
151
164
.row {
+80
pages/blog/founderbox.md
+80
pages/blog/founderbox.md
···
1
+
---
2
+
atroot: true
3
+
template:
4
+
slug: founderbox
5
+
title: The founder box
6
+
subtitle: Thinking inside boxes
7
+
date: 2026-04-16
8
+
draft: false
9
+
---
10
+
11
+
For the entirety of my life up until a year ago, I put myself in a box.
12
+
A metaphorical box, categorized by my skills, interests and epistemic
13
+
scope. This was entirely self-imposed, but I suppose clinging onto
14
+
identity is only human. Let's call this the "programmer box". The term
15
+
is somewhat lossy but it serves the purpose here. The content I
16
+
consumed, the people I interacted with, the _culture_ that I found
17
+
myself steeped in.
18
+
19
+
The programmer box is tight. It's well-bounded and there are clear
20
+
membership criterea. You write code, you're good at it, and there are
21
+
legible, well-defined steps to get better at it. Understanding, nay,
22
+
grokking computer systems and building an intuition for it is a
23
+
tractable process.
24
+
25
+
<figure>
26
+
<img class="object-cover relative w-full mb-3"
27
+
src="https://cdn.anirudh.fi/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,height=400/img/boxes.png" />
28
+
<figcaption><a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Kluis-en-juwelenkist--b38d83b7dbec9d007c01367df3e386f7">Strongbox and Jewel Casket</a>, Rijksmuseum</figcaption>
29
+
</figure>
30
+
31
+
When we began [Tangled](https://tangled.org), I firmly held my position
32
+
within the programmer box. For many months we just wrote code and
33
+
architected parts of the larger system. And then the more ... unbounded
34
+
stuff began to creep in. I was now responsible for figuring out (at
35
+
varying levels of depth) accounting and finance, Finnish corporate law,
36
+
talking to investors, and so much more. I was now a "founder", and the
37
+
anchors of knowing what I know, knowing what I don't and knowing how to
38
+
get better were all simultaneously lifted.
39
+
40
+
The founder box is loose. The membership criterea doesn't really exist,
41
+
and unlike the programmer (or any vertical for that matter) identity
42
+
which is earned (to some extent anyway), being a founder feels a lot
43
+
more provisional, self-declared. There's culture but everything else is
44
+
uncharted.
45
+
46
+
<figure>
47
+
<img class="object-cover relative w-full mb-3"
48
+
src="https://cdn.anirudh.fi/cdn-cgi/image/width=600,height=400/img/workshop.png" />
49
+
<figcaption><a href="https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/object/Weavers-Workshop--f9ea451b4168b46e4fef74fa3b8568d1?tab=data">Weavers' Workshop</a>, Rijksmuseum</figcaption>
50
+
</figure>
51
+
52
+
Consider companies of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Founding a
53
+
business back then was largely an extension of knowing *a thing*: your
54
+
trade. You were perhaps a blacksmith, a mill operator, or sold a good.
55
+
Most knowledge was inherited vertically, i.e. passed down through
56
+
apprenticeship or family. The systems around you were slow moving enough
57
+
that the peripheral knowledge likely wasn't all that much.
58
+
59
+
Founders today are born into a more multi-faceted and interconnected
60
+
system; the peripheral knowledge required is significantly more. The
61
+
modern founder's epistemic scope is exhaustingly large even to just
62
+
reason about their companies. For example, a hiring decision is legal,
63
+
financial, *and* cultural decision. And none of this is inherited --
64
+
founders must construct a working model of this system as they navigate
65
+
its nuances. Importantly, this system is irreducibly ambigious with no
66
+
clear path toward mastery -- unlike programming or whatever else.
67
+
68
+
I suspect that this expansion of epistemic scope from whatever prior
69
+
boxes is responsible for the ever so visible "techbro hubris". I kinda
70
+
get it: you have to rapidly assemble fluency in a whole new set of
71
+
domains that you previously had nothing to do with, and this assembly
72
+
can sometimes feel like mastery. I know it did for me. Some of it is
73
+
most certainly performative but it's a function of the system --
74
+
showcasing intellectual breadth gets you forward. The market selects for
75
+
this hubris -- VCs pattern-match on this behavior as it reads as
76
+
conviction and vision (and they subseqently mirror this behavior).
77
+
78
+
I know that there's no going back now -- the founder box is as
79
+
exhilarating as it is indeterminate. The edges are gone, and I've
80
+
stopped looking for them.
+1
-1
templates/text.html
+1
-1
templates/text.html
···
20
20
</section>
21
21
22
22
<section>
23
-
<h1 class="-mb-4">{{ index .Meta "title" }} {{ if eq .Meta.draft "true" }}
23
+
<h1 class="-mb-4">{{ index .Meta "title" }} {{ if .Meta.draft }}
24
24
<span class="text-base text-red-400">[draft]</span>{{ end }}
25
25
</h1>
26
26
<h2 class="text-gray dark:text-dark-gray">{{ index .Meta "subtitle" }}</h2>