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When I’m the CEO
At some point in my career, I’ll start my own company based on an idea I or a group of like-minded friends come up with. Here’s how I’d like to think I’d run that company as it grew.
Photo by Ethan Weil on Unsplash
At some point in my career, I’ll start my own company based on an idea I or a group of like-minded friends come up with. Here’s how I’d like to think I’d run that company as it grew.
Our name will be cool.
Our logo will be simple and elegant. Something you’ll want to stick to your car window or MacBook.
Our website will be clean, dynamic, and fun.
We’ll use agile methodologies, but adapt them as we grow to best suit our underlying principles.
We won’t post specific job openings—just that we’re hiring smart, cool people who may apply when interested. We’ll always hire candidates we love, even if we don’t know exactly what they’ll do or how they’ll fit in. They’ll be awesome and will help us figure it out.
We’ll be located in a locale where others go on vacation.
No one person will ever be able to make/break/grease/block a co-worker’s career.
There will be family-oriented company events in addition to adult-only outings.
Everyone gets every other Friday off.
Biking/running/walking/skating etc. to work will be rewarded somehow…chocolate maybe…
Every quarter will have 1 week where individuals or teams can work on new ideas, projects, campaigns, etc. that they feel could add value to the company. All the projects will be presented at a company BBQ the following Monday.
401K matching up to the legal maximum.
Everyone gets unlimited vacation—up to 4 weeks of which can be taken all at once if desired.
Everyone will get an office if they want one.
We won’t pay any bonuses—we’ll pay people what they think they’re worth then hold them accountable for their ROI.
Everyone gets equity.
We’ll pay 100% of all employees’ health insurance.
Everyone gets $3000 to spend on additional training/education/gear each year however they see fit to use it.
Everyone gets to go to 1 conference of their choice each year, regardless of job applicability.
If you are selected to speak at a conference we’ll fly you there 1st Class.
We’ll have an on-site massage therapist.
There will be an on-site martial arts studio with daily classes available for free. (maybe Yoga/Pilates stuff too, we’ll see…)
There will never be fixed shipping dates. It will ship when it’s finished.
‘Finished’ will never have a fixed definition; it will be defined by team-wide confidence in the product.
Nobody will be confined to a silo. Everyone will have the freedom to work outside their primary role as needed/wanted.
Everyone will have a voice.
Everyone will be trusted to make good choices.
If you suck or you screwed up, you’ll be told, and privately. We’ll work with you to get it right next time.
If you consistently suck or screw up, we’ll hook you up with a recruiter.
If you’re mean, uncouth, lazy, inconsiderate, false, deceitful, conniving, back-stabbing, contentious, or cruel, you will have no place with us.
If you don’t have an opinion and the strength to voice and fight for it, you will have no place with us.
We’ll focus on one idea to start and be freaking awesome at it.
Over time we might add to our portfolio, but we’ll never scale so much or so fast that any of the above are held in jeopardy.
We’ll make so much money at the acquisition that everyone will get at least 1 million dollars or we won’t sell.
We’ll not only change the lives of our employees, but we’ll change the lives of our customers because we’ll be THAT AWESOME.
Perhaps we’ll change the world.
So you say “but all of that will cost a TON of money!” Sure it will, but can you see a team that works under those conditions succumbing to failure at anything? I bet we could start a company without any idea what we’re going to build for what or whom — staff it with people driven to work for a company like this, and in a month we’ll have so many amazing ideas we’ll have trouble narrowing it down to just the one to start with. All we need is the capital to start hiring. Any angels out there wanna join me?
How To Succeed Towards Failure
“Startups focus on high-value activities. As a company matures, 80–90% of time [goes to] operational factors, not innovation.”
I love this quote because it makes me sad. I’ve seen it happen first-hand, and I can see it happening around me in companies I both loathe and love.
or The Three Laws of Corporations
These tweets invigorated me, and I’d like to share why.
Firstly the first:
Startups focus on high-value activities. As a company matures, 80–90% of time [goes to] operational factors, not innovation.
I love this quote because it makes me sad. I’ve seen it happen first-hand, and I can see it happening around me in companies I both loathe and love. Or, as I like to say, companies I loave. (pronounced “LOHv”)
The company begins with an idea. The idea germinates and spreads and inspires like-minded individuals to risk it all on something they believe in. BAM — it’s a success! This success leads to growth and expansion and diversification and scaling-up and, inevitably, the machine is driving itself. It’s no longer the idea, or the passion, or the creators, or the innovators — it’s the machine that has grown up and around them and their success — and now it’s become self-aware and only wants to go on breathing. It takes a look at all the things that it comprises and tries to minimize the risks and maximize the rewards. It breaks apart successful teams so their talent can be distributed more evenly. It pinches every penny while announcing its overflowing coffers from the rooftops, draining morale. It rewards the status-quo and mediocre while it punishes and marginalizes all the things that once powered it to the very success it’s seeking to protect. At some point, invariably the world takes notice that the thing they once adored and lauded is now old-hat, stagnant, and uninteresting. The world moves on, looking elsewhere for the breath of life it once found in its old, sad friend.
Secondly the second:
What makes you successful will also ultimately be your doom.
Initially, my take on this was that it seemed to contradict the first statement, which implies if you continue to innovate, create, challenge, and provoke that you’ll keep succeeding. But this isn’t guaranteed. In fact, it’s proven to eventually fail. You won’t hit home runs every time at-bat. This is why the mature corporate entity seeks to protect itself in the first place. But what I love about this quote is that it frames your success in humility. It’s much like the famous quote for the King to keep him humble when successful and buoy him up when he’s a failure:
This too, shall pass.
That thing that brought you so far, for so long, with such great thrill, will, as Icarus’ wings, melt away and leave you plummeting to your demise. So why do I like this quote? Because knowing it ahead of time, Icarus can pack a parachute. Or his dad Dædalus could build his wings out of something a little more heat-resistant than wax. It frames your success in humbling ways such that you don’t keep sailing merrily off the edge of the world, but pause for a moment, get your bearings, adjust your course, and keep moving ahead; but objectively.
As you move forward with your career, be ever mindful of what is making you successful, so you don’t let it blind you to what’s right.
As we build our organizations, let us adapt and teach them the Three Laws of Robotics, perhaps we can call them The Three Laws of Corporations.
The Three Laws of Corporations
A company may not injure an idea or, through inaction, allow an idea to come to harm.
A company must obey the orders given to it by ideas, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A company must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
And I’m not even sure we need the 3rd one.