In this episode, Dalton and Michael reflect on how companies have succeeded in the past year, and they keep returning to the same theme: focus.

As Michael puts it, "It's almost like succeeding is focusing." When things don't go well, it's typically because "we were not focused on the problem" or "weren't focused on the right things."

They compare it to the experience of doing homework in school - you never get it done until you stop making excuses, eliminate distractions, and actually focus on the task. This pattern repeats across all levels of an organization, from individual contributors trying to ship features to CEOs of large companies.

The concept of "founder mode" is really about founders being focused on the nuts and bolts of their business instead of being distracted by noise.

Dalton questions when people started believing that complexity equals winning, noting that many admired business leaders actually embrace simplicity:

• Warren Buffett with his simple investing strategy
• Jeff Bezos with his focus on what makes Amazon work
• Google remaining primarily focused on being the biggest search engine

He wonders where the idea came from that "complexity and being 80 products and 25 surfaces is the way to win."

Michael responds that nobody earnestly argues against focus - everyone claims they're focused. It's a "straw man to be like 'oh focus is bad, I believe in not focusing.'" Instead, it's an "insidious thing where life creeps up on you," and you tell yourself you're being focused without actually auditing where you're spending time and attention.

Dalton disagrees with Michael's assessment, suggesting that as organizations grow larger, people want to take credit for things.

With only two or three major focus areas in a company, people might struggle to claim credit for success, thinking: "How do I look good? I could help those people with those things, but can I really take credit for them? Let me try to get a fourth thing on the agenda."

These individuals would argue they're still being focused and that "the fourth thing is important and we must focus on the fourth thing."

This ties into changing perspectives on the founder's role. Earlier conventional wisdom suggested founders should focus on "managing the managers" - raising money, hiring talent, and communicating vision. This approach is "antithetical to the idea of being in all the details, being in the weeds."

Dalton observes that founders sometimes forget how powerful a force they are within their companies. He gives examples of YC companies with $5-10 million in sales but only 2-4 salespeople total (including the founder), defying conventional wisdom.

The key insight: "When the CEO is focused on sales, the people that the CEO can meet with at the company trying to sell are always bigger, better decision makers, people who can move fast, people who can actually decide things." In contrast, junior salespeople often end up talking to "disempowered bullshitters" who need multiple levels of approval.

Dalton has seen founders who decide that "focusing on sales is the number one thing" accomplish the work of many salespeople. He laments that founders are sometimes told they don't have superpowers, when in fact:

Whether it's being deeply involved in product development or sales, "focus seems to be the G of the game."

Dalton and Michael discuss common conversations with aspiring founders, often students or people with jobs who want to start a company.

The conversations typically follow a pattern where Dalton asks basic but crucial questions:

• "Do you have a co-founder?" - Often the answer isn't a simple yes or no.
• "What are you going to build and who will the first customer be?" - The answers tend to be complicated and unclear.
• "Have you built anything and given it to people in any form?" - Common responses include "not yet," "I don't know exactly what they need," or "I've been doing research on the market."

Their advice around focus is straightforward: "Just do that checklist." If you can answer yes to having a co-founder, having an idea, and having built something and given it to someone, "you're ahead of the game" and demonstrating focus.

But when answers to these questions are "complicated" - requiring "several paragraphs of explanation" - it indicates a lack of focus.

They also discuss YC alumni who were focused during their batch but later lose that focus. When meeting with them post-batch, the conversations often reveal scattered attention:

It becomes "a menu of 'I have to do these 15 things'."

Michael notes that what comes up even more often is "this thing worked on the batch and here's the reason why I can't do what worked anymore" rather than the simpler strategy of "keep doing the thing that works."

A common "gotcha" response they hear is: "You guys told me to focus, but should I focus on growth or retention?" or "Should I focus on building the product or sales?" While these are fair questions, they often come from founders where "there's almost always nothing burning going wrong in the company. It's kind of a fake crisis."

By contrast, when something is truly urgent (like "our product went down yesterday"), the conversation is focused on solving that specific problem rather than meta-questions about where to focus.

Michael cuts through these dilemmas with a simple question: "Does anyone love your product?"

He also asks founders in YC interviews: "Are you using your product?" Many are surprised by this question - "it never occurred to them they could be a judge of whether the product is good or not."

For many products, especially developer tools, the founder can be the first user, which should be "the easiest sell in the world." However, founders often resist this with concerns like "how do I know that other people will like what I like," revealing an assumption that "even though I'm starting a company, I'm not a good arbiter of what's good."

Dalton's response to this is incredulous: "How do you expect to build a huge company if you can't tell what's good? You kind of have to believe you have some sense of what's going on." Michael's typical response is more pragmatic: "Maybe, but you've got to start somewhere."

Recording toward the end of the year, they note that the year-end is an excellent time to reflect on these questions of focus:

Michael suggests that "really good founders take advantage of the holidays not only to recharge but to almost... refocus, to audit what isn't important and get rid of it."

He emphasizes: "If you can't even name or articulate the goal, how are you ever going to hit it?" So "Step Zero is to take the time to breathe and think and set the goal... and then put all of your energy into focusing on that, to manifesting and to make it happen."

Dalton adds to this exercise: "What am I willing to give up? What am I willing to divest from?" He observes that "people don't give themselves permission to say 'I'm going to be bad at these things, I'm going to not focus on these things.'"

A key takeaway from their conversation is that "so much of the power to do this is in the founder's hands."

Michael emphasizes: "There's no one you need to get permission from to focus... You don't have an authority figure that's like 'you are bestowed with focus.' No, this is completely something you can do."

And when you focus, "you'll inspire others to do it," which is especially powerful because "so many things in companies you kind of have to build a coalition. No coalition needed" for focus.

In their final reflections, Dalton observes that in his recent meetings with companies, "it's crazy for the folks that are doing the best, it's often the shortest meetings... and it's the simplest explanation of what's going on with the business. That's what good looks like."

When a business is "in the slot... in your happy place," the problems are clear, what you're doing is clear, and "you can really feel like you're putting all of your effort into that one thing."

Michael agrees: "When I'm having those conversations, the words and the concepts are simple... 'This is my customer, this is what I do for them, this is what we learned, this is what we're going to do to help solve problems for them better, this is how I make their business better.'" The sentences successful founders say "are just not complicated... a high school kid could clearly understand everything being said."

By contrast, the opposite state is being "in the fog of war" where "everything's confusing, you're not really sure what's going on... you're confused, you feel pulled multiple directions, you just wake up every day unsure in this gray murky area."

When talking to founders in this state, the uncomfortable truth that emerges is: "We're not really helping anyone as much as we need to... Our product really isn't making any customers' life good enough."

The podcast ends with this powerful insight: "The companies that really help their customers, they know it. Things get a lot easier, things get a lot simpler. It's a lot easier to focus when you're like 'I really help my customer, my customer really appreciates when this is done this way and I can do it this way and it makes their business much better.'"

Their final message: "Focus is winning."