Analysis of Five Types of Leaders in the Crypto Industry, What Warning Does AC's Departure Give Us?

The news of Andre Cronje's departure from the DeFi industry has sent shockwaves through the entire crypto community, with various opinions and discussions flooding the social media platforms. This sudden event has also had a significant impact on the protocols he has been involved in. In response to this unexpected development, Adam Cochran, a partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, has shared his thoughts and analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of different types of entrepreneurial leaders in relation to protocols.

Five Types of Entrepreneurial Leaders

Adam Cochran categorizes entrepreneurial leaders into the following five types, each with its own strengths, needs, and weaknesses:

• Innovator
• Operator
• Optimizer
• Ambitious
• Learner

Innovator

Innovators are driven by emerging technologies, problems, and mysteries. When told something is impossible, they are the most motivated. These individuals are usually introverted, looking to solve a problem, build something, and move on to the next thing. However, the crypto industry currently has a bad habit of undervaluing this behavior and labeling it as a "Rug."

However, innovators are not and will never be the ones to create perfect and polished products. Yet, they are the ones with the technical ability to realize novel ideas and drive industry progress.

Most innovations in life occur through incremental changes, like forking UniSwap V2 and adding new features, and trying new things step by step. However, innovators construct entirely new concepts from scratch, which is crucial.

In traditional venture-backed startups outside the crypto space, if led by innovators, they must be supported by seasoned operators and product VPs, or the CEO themselves must be visionary. However, what new startups need is a CEO with extensive experience.

Because innovators tend to sell or pass on the startup to other co-founders before moving on to the next thing. This is not too bad; they simply focus on their skills. Andre Cronje is classified in this group, bringing things to the crypto space that others couldn't dream of. However, satisfying his appetite requires building new things continuously; maintenance and optimization are not what he wants to do.

There's nothing wrong with this; he is not obligated to do so, especially when he never received a share of the lockup in his own projects. However, people often expect him to do more, regardless of how clearly he set expectations for the project.

Operator

Operators are experts in organization and processes, and many tech founders have taken on this role due to their experience in workflow.

At times, these leaders are also founders, but they are usually co-founders, senior executives, or the second CEO after the innovator leaves the company's initial founding. They take on the critical task of building the foundation around the initial idea.

Operators have a unique position to grasp and help turn things around when innovators struggle, as no other type of leader can transform something lacking structure into a productive product.

Optimizer

Optimizers are perfectionists, in a good way. Many design leader types fall into this category. They believe everything in life should be in its right place and continuously improve the experience.

This type of leader is unlikely to be an initial founder because the cost of optimizing a product is quite high. They often serve as recruiters, especially in later-stage startups like Coinbase, dedicated to elevating the product to new mainstream levels. Though these leaders can still be great founders, they may focus too much on less-than-perfect details, slowing down the pace of challenges.

They see the world in ways other leadership types do not possess. They believe every detail matters and know that when each detail is in the best state, it can lead the product to incredible growth levels.

Their capabilities are often wrongly overlooked by the execution team, whether in general startups or specifically in the web3 and crypto space. However, they are crucial for reaching mainstream users.

Ambitious

Entrepreneurs of this type are relentless workaholics. They do not do anything particularly novel or better than others, but they move faster than anyone else.

Similar to innovators, they often quickly move on to the next thing, but instead of building something entirely new, they choose to move on to the next part of the same product because speed, not novelty, drives them.

They often notice an unoptimized part of a "good enough" product, which pales in comparison to the early popularity of the product. Companies led by this type of leader typically succeed in the early private market, but if the leadership does not diversify its talent and culture, they often face obstacles when entering the mainstream market.

Founders of venture-backed startups often encounter this situation, where their valuations reach billions within a few years, then face various challenges. Regardless of the fate of these startups, the main reason is their rapid and flashy growth without knowing how or when to decentralize their leadership to improve their business and product through other technologies.

This does not mean being a hustler is bad; in fact, it is often crucial for early-stage startups. Some startups can only survive if you can move quickly, and rapid growth often provides an incredible cash reserve to address any challenges.

Learner

Learners are the least common type of leader, with the best example in the tech industry being Bill Gates in Microsoft's later years. Learners can perceive what they do not know and are eager to clarify it.

They believe everything can be solved and are experts in learning and research, balancing humility and clarifying areas where they are not proficient. After understanding to a sufficient degree, they select and empower appropriate experts in each area and follow them on most issues. Their stance is not arrogant but rather hopes that experts can rationally defend their positions.

These founders are typically very powerful but uncommon. However, they come at the cost of growth speed, and the work environment is challenging as some elements may be overly calculated and rational.

Companies run by these types of founders usually experience "overnight success, ten years in the making," suddenly ubiquitous but growing slowly and steadily.

Note: While these individuals seem trustworthy and worth taking a chance in various situations, they are not omniscient and prone to mistakes.

Industry Issues

Most importantly, founders need a diverse and complementary leadership team. Innovators and ambitious leaders need the help of optimizers and operators and strive to move towards the learner role.

This industry welcomes innovators and ambitious leaders in a bull market but detests them in a bear market. Venture capital investors strive to drive companies to grow by a hundredfold for fund reports, over-rewarding these two types of individuals.

Worst of all, token and team incentive models over-reward early innovators and ambitious leaders, leaving little reward for later hiring or external teams contributing to optimization and operations.

When teams try to adjust the incentive structure through governance voting, short-sighted investors often vote against allocating funds to the team. This leads to many mid-term retention issues, as seen in projects like Sushiswap.

Let's Go Back to Andre Cronje

Andre is the innovator driving this industry forward. However, do not be upset because he is an innovator. That's his role, what he excels at, and what he can do.

At least we can celebrate the operators and optimizers, such as around 50 full-time contributors to Yearn or 140 part-time contributors.

This industry is very concerned with flash-in-the-pan success, to the point where many are reluctant to work hard to build long-term, sustainable, and profitable products. The entire crypto industry releases too many useless products, while a well-crafted product that meets mainstream needs could potentially reach a scale 50 times the current market size.

Try to understand the types of leaders and founders in investment, but also realize they cannot do it alone. Only with complementary talents can durable products be built.

More importantly, this industry should learn not to idolize any individual. Everyone has flaws and limitations, only capable of doing so much. If you think someone is perfect and flawless, fair or not, you will eventually be disappointed.