See above, but the message I got was that if you're a small restaurant or a bike repair shop or something like that, <i>the</i> thing to work on is the 'system', which means making it so you can drop new people in to grow by handing them a manual which describes in detail how things are done.<p>I'm not so sure something like a tech startup is like that.  What would have been the point at replacing most founders early on?  The whole point is developing a product that scales with the 'hockey stick' curve, which is very different from growing, say, a bike shop into a chain of 3 or 4 bike shops.<p>I agree completely with documenting things, but one is documenting stuff so it doesn't get lost or have to be explained out-loud every time, to help people get up to speed with things.  The other is create a system for people to work in that doesn't leave people much room to screw up, so that you can have someone new up and flipping burgers in a day.<p><i>Edit</i> - the book makes a lot of sense in the context of a 'small business' where the goal, often enough is to extract yourself from being the business and make it run without you.  Where I'm a bit more dubious is about startups...