Did that original inventor really work on his marriage?

Creative inventor Casey Mackrell has had a big week. First, he got married. Then, he got infected.

At his wedding reception, Makrrell had to quickly give his colleagues access to a code that could only be opened on his laptop. Co-founder Torrey Leonard captured the moment by taking a photo to capture Mackrell wrapping up the application, staring at his computer in the playroom as his friends and family danced in the background, flowers abound and fairy lights.

Leonard posted a photo of his founder on LinkedIn with a decent caption. A photo of the inventor coding at his wedding went viral, sparking fear and anger.

But the real story behind the picture is not as bad as it seems.

“At the same time that the picture was taken, Casey needed to push something to the server. There was a code on his laptop that his colleague needed to access,” Leonard told TechCrunch. “For 30 seconds, Casey would click a button: You’re in, you hit the button, you’re done. And you can see in the picture, people are laughing.”

Leonard gives no context that Mackrell was on his computer for less than a minute. But that’s what makes his post so clear: The idea of ​​a founder who spends hours writing code in his marriage is crazy. What happened is actually not that bad.

Leonard’s post has generated a lot of discussion in the startup community because it is an extension of the existing discourse about “founder mode,” a concept coined by Paul Graham, a founding partner of Y Combinator. And beyond Silicon Valley, the post has sparked outrage.

“Last year, we were spending time in SF, and I’d be talking to friends at a restaurant or a bar, and Casey would be on his laptop — and other people, because it’s SF, right?” Leonard said. “This founder’s mindset, It’s very encouraging that I think a lot of people are in the technology space.”

But beyond the tech bubble, what founders see as dedication can be seen as a lack of work-life balance.

According to Graham, you can run a company in one of two ways: founder mode, or manager mode. In founder mode, the founder must use everything the company does. Founders switch to manager mode when they start shipping, which Graham argues can make startups less successful.

Both Graham’s story and Leonard’s LinkedIn post were met with a mixed response. While some find Mackrell’s “innovator mode” approach inspiring, others are appalled by this lack of work-life balance.

“Publicly, all the comments we’ve received are very negative…

Viral LinkedIn posts, which range from funny to snarky, often end up on other platforms, divorced from their context. One particularly successful post, where the founder announced what pitching her boyfriend taught her about b2b sales, was posted as a joke, although the post has exploded into a new meme in its own right.

“So far, I’ve received thousands of emails, LinkedIn DMs, texts from founders I know, unicorn founders I don’t know, Fortune 500 CEOs, and top investors from around the world in Silicon Valley who have said. , ‘Let’s go, I’m on your side,’” Leonard said.

Mackrell is currently on his honeymoon with his wife, so he could not be reached for comment. But his wife was not bothered by her husband taking his laptop out of their marriage, according to Leonard. However, the company must figure out how to avoid a situation like this in the future, where only one person in a company of 15 employees can solve a particular problem. Paul Graham might disagree, however.