From some of the previous decisions taken by Brian, and the quality of his discourse on twitter, it feels like he has succumbed to something that afflicts a lot of rich people with frail egos: surrounding themselves with yes-men, they rarely engage with the reality as-is and instead with a make believe one. Elon Must also suffers from this as do the founders of AirBnB.
It wasn't that long ago that, in SV, the dominant values were humility, kindness and openness to all views (even if behind the scenes there was the ruthlessness demanded by capitalism). The last few years have seen this value system corrode, and it seems like its hurting everyone. From the tech workers constantly churning for no good reason, to the tech executives sequestered in their own thought bubbles until reality finally hits them (usually, too late to change).
> "as do the founders of AirBnB."
This resonates but I can't put my finger on why for the founders of AirBnB. Do you have examples? Obviously true for Elon.
It seems like the previous generation of founders were always paranoid that their companies could/would fail in an instant, which led to the management styles of Andy Grove, Gates, Jobs etc (and I'd argue Larry and Sergey as well). That mindset meant they knew they couldn't afford to be surrounded by yes man and their egos were secure enough when challenged by their underlings.
Despite the intensity of all three, you hear stories of how Gates only respected people who could credibly argue back against him, Jobs empowered his team, etc. The current generation of founders seem to believe their own mythical BS to such an extent that anyone who disagrees with them is culled from the organization, resulting in a natural selection effect of only the yes-men survive.
Ah do you remember the whole Founder Mode trend? It faded just as fast as it started because it was meaningless. And it has had doubtful impact on the product itself.