mostly researching, thinking, and writing about company culture via The Kool-Aid Factory and Founder Fodder (newsletter). Used to Stripe (Stripe Press, BizOps) and Figma (Figma for Education).
The thing that will endure for 100 years, the way it has for most 100 year companies, is the culture. The culture is what creates the foundation for all future innovation. If you break the culture, you break the machine that creates your products.
Stripes that move on from the company and find themselves at companies that don’t embrace the written word to the same extent. I count myself among them. We all report feeling a bit lost and disconnected from their colleagues without it.
Which way you run is often the key differentiator between effective and ineffective CEOs. Almost all CEOs know where the problems are, but only the truly elite ones run towards the fear.
I am a giant advocate for technical founders running their own companies, but one consistent way that technical founders deeply harm their businesses is by screwing up the budgeting process. Yes, the budgeting process. How ridiculous is that?
Noyce knew exactly what he possessed in this integrated circuit, or microchip, as the press would call it. Noyce knew that he had discovered the road to El Dorado.
Most hacker-founders would like to spend all their time programming. You won't get to, unless you fail. Which can be transformed into: If you spend all your time programming, you will fail.