What Social Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Julian Assange and Wikileaks: Avoiding Founder's Syndrome

[struggle4progress]

What began as a bold global initiative to challenge the information hegemony of governments and open them to wider, better-informed participation by citizens in the digital age is trickling toward irrelevance and outright shame in the cramped quarters of the Ecuadorian embassy in London, as the leader of the once-revolutionary secret-exposing site Wikileaks uses the guise of political asylum to escape serious allegations of sexual violence in Sweden. As his dwindling band of supporters argues about Swedish rape law, UK extradition treaties and theorizes on a plot to spirit him to Guantanamo Bay via Stockholm, Julian Assange attracts the public approval of creepy rape apologists and intellectually incurious political sloganeers ...

If nothing else, Wikileaks is a clear (and rather spectacular) case of Founder’s Syndrome – that enterprise-killing malady that conflates the original noble goals of a start-up with the imperfect life of one mortal human being who happened to come up with the idea.

I’ve seen it before, many times, since I started covering tech start-ups ... I’ve seen it in start-ups I’ve been associated with. And heck, I may actually have been guilty of it in the half dozen or more companies and websites I’ve founded myself. One person embodies a growing organization, internalizes all decision-making, roots out those who come to question leadership decisions as “disloyal,” and generally manages on personal instinct and whim, leading to wildly inconsistent detours that pull the enterprise away from its original mission. That person ... often has ” a deep seated (and mostly unconscious) psychological need to be the center of the operation, and to be recognized.” Sound familiar, Wikileaks followers?

... Assange remains, locked in the downward flush of Founder’s Syndrome, much to the detriment of the movement he was once a leader of. And he remains the man on the balcony, both figuratively and – as it played out last Sunday – in actuality. I’m not sure that isn’t what he wants. But it’s something that social entrepreneurs who actually care about changing the world more than becoming public figures should avoid.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomwatson/2012/08/23/what-social-entrepreneurs-can-learn-from-julian-assange-and-wikileaks-avoiding-founders-syndrome/

[niyad]

1. have you ever thought about getting another hobby?

[Bodhi BloodWave]

2. nobody is forcing you or others to read his posts *shrugs*

and i personally appreciate him posting the articles as they are an interesting read in many cases

[niyad]

3. one does not have to read them in order to observe that they are posted in just about every

forum on this board, on an almost daily basis. it does make one wonder.

[freshwest]

4. He used to post stories about walking around and registering voters, if I'm not mistaken. Different

People have different fascinations. This is probably his best piece on separating the dual issues that may be influencing many DUers on this although I doubt we are victims of hero worship here. In many pieces, Assange is made to look a victim and people react to that with empathy. I know I did, now I'm wondering, not because of SFP, just my own musing and looking for reasons behind this very long drawn out soap opera.

While we may support what it is that Wikileaks has done or can do in contract to what the shills of mainstream media refuse to cover, it isn't about one person. For some it may be that he disclosed information that they feel in danger about being exposed. Not because they're guilty of doing wrong, but it's not the protocol they believe is essential.

I don't believe people who are concerned about this care about Assange as a hero. But they are worried efforts to get the facts to the people is endangered. Things are getting harder to obtain.

On a more personal level, they may be worried after the Bush renditions, that this is what this is. And that it can happen to anyone.

Others may think this is a swipe at Obama. I support him, recognize there is some conspiracy talk on all of this, but some CT people despise Assange and Wikileaks. They say it's all a plot to get the public to approve with more restricitons on communications and more loss of privacy.

I'm in the middle. Almost all CT is virulently anti-government and hold Obama as the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing and an enemy to freedom. I don't. I also admit to the fact that my years of memory is coloring my views on this.

There's always Trash Thread. And someone just suggested in Help that a tagword trash feature be added to the search function. It would help people not have to read stuff they think is bogus.