Against conviction

The cult of founder conviction has gone too far. We have collectively decided that the loudest believer in the room is the most likely to win — and forgotten that the loudest believer in the room is usually the one with the least information.

Conviction, in the founder mythology, is supposed to be the trait that pulls a company through the gap between a plan and a working business. In practice it is just as often the trait that keeps a founder pulling on a string that is no longer attached to anything.

A different word for the same thing

What we call “conviction” in the best founders is usually a quiet, evidence-led stubbornness — the willingness to keep pushing on something specific when the data still supports it, even if the room has cooled. What we call “conviction” in the worst founders is the willingness to keep pushing when the data has stopped supporting it.

The interesting founders I know update fastest. They are the most curious people in their own companies — not the most certain.

If you are hiring for conviction, you are probably hiring for the performance of it. Hire instead for the thing underneath — the slow, unglamorous habit of staying interested in why your last assumption was wrong.