Startups consist of two elements:
1) Fundamental Business: expect it to have the unit economic profile of incumbents; choose carefully -- you may have these unit economics forever.
2) Memetic Premium: usually wrapped up in a technology story about structurally improving the unit economics of the Fundamental Business; this is your capital budget for tech R&D, and what spins your talent flywheel; highly dependent on Meta selection.
As a founder, you must be both:
a) Operator: running the fundamental business and the tech R&D successfully and at a high pace, with correct long term positioning.
b) Promoter: creating a Compounding Myth that lowers your cost of capital and spins the talent flywheel, deftly navigating social games and public narratives in capital markets, politics, and talent circles.
Founders that are pure Operators (often Protestant) have distain for Promoters on moral and aesthetic grounds. This is misguided and the cause of many sub-venture scale outcomes that leave them personally with nothing.
Founders that are pure Promoters can sometimes initially attract talent and capital, but flame out because they don’t have their feet on the ground and lose track of the unit economics of their actual business.
Today, to be a good Promoter, you must be pretty clever and in touch with details, or else you won't be persuasive to smart institutional people or top candidates. So the best Promoters are usually strong Operators.
Every business requires a founder with a different Operator/Promoter ratio: construction is extreme Operator, crypto is extreme Promoter.
Elon is 10/10 at both, in businesses that require that: Tesla doesn't have way better unit economics than other car companies, and is insanely capital intensive. He gets max resources and talent due to the Compounding Myth he has created, and directs resources hyperefficiently re: the Fundamental Business. He realizes initial tech R&D stories, enabling him to lever up on successive narratives.
Don't lose sight of your Fundamental Business, and don't discount the importance of Mimetic Premium.