Companies present an illusion of unity but are actually made up of thousands of individuals.

This illusion is even supported in law with concepts like the "corporate veil".

But of course companies are not some unitary machine operating with a completely aligned purpose.

They're more like a swarm of bees draped in a sheet.

There's some kind of emergent phenomenon with a post-hoc rationalization to explain the decisions that were made.

Though obviously internal structure like company priorities will have a significant impact on what emerges, making it much easier to post-hoc rationalization; it's already mostly aligned!

This same logic applies to humans and the way our brains work.

For an entity to make a bold decision, it often has to understand the situation.

It's easier for one mind to understand a thing than for thousands of minds to all individually understand it.

This is one reason founder-led companies can have better returns.

The founder is someone that everyone recognizes as having the right to steer.

That means, even if an employee doesn't understand why the founder is steering that way, they're still likely to go in the direction they've steered.

The result is that founder-led companies can steer around obstacles that the company itself does not "understand".