Scaringe: Technical founders must not paralyze scaling teams by bottlenecking decisions
RJ Scaringe · Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe on the R2, robotics & the future of EVs | Masters of Scale · Jun 12, 2026 · at 5:48
Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe reflects on transitioning from an engineer designing parts to leading an organization without creating decision-making bottlenecks.
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“And so I think for any time an engineer is forming a business, there's a tendency to be really close to the product, which I think is fantastic. It's really a wonderful characteristic of technical founders, but you also need to recognize you can't be in every decision or in every meeting. And as the organization scales, finding ways to have influence or to impact the product, but to do it in a way that, that doesn't lead to the whole team waiting to say, well, what's, you know, in Rivian's case, like, what's RJ gonna say? And sort of paralyzed waiting for a decision to come from the top.”
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