Company Cultures

I find it very interesting to go visit companies and get a taste of their company cultures.

You learn so much from how they go about the simple things like treating visitors, housing their employees, feeding their employees, etc.

I visited Intel and Google this week. Both are great companies with fantastic products, talented employees, and great businesses.

But they have very different cultures and you could see it the minute you walked in the door.

These cultures get defined very early in the development of the companies, when they are venture stage companies.  Which means that well before the company cafeterias and corporate campuses, the characteristics of companies are set in stone and they will manifest themselves from then on.

It's an important thing for an entrepreneur to think about when starting a company.  Because you can't change cultures very easily once they are set in place.

Comments

[Tom Labus]

And Enron too.

Their culture lead to all the abuses. Skilling admired the the "deal" but not the details.

[Tony Alva]

The importance of a corporations culture is often times WAY understated. Where I work, we are under going a huge corp culture clash of the titans following a well publicized merger of two big telecom companies. I worked for the one that got gobbled up by the older wireline based competitor.

Since I've worked for the younger/smaller legacy company that got gobbled from it's inception, I can firmly state that the reason our former company defied all odds to become the Wall Street daring that it did was exactly what you VC's talk about all the time. We did it by reinventing the way an old business got done. We tried new things, we hired young talent, we studied what we didn't like about the older established companies (and there was lots to dislike) and aggressively avoided falling into the same traps.

From an employee perspective, the company really made an effort to woo and keep it’s talent. Not by paying huge salaries, but by a combination of fiscal incentives and other things designed to make people happier about coming to work. We were one of the first companies to do away with the suit. I look damn good in a suit, but by 5:00 I want out of it, especially the shoes. If you’re not in front of customers, there is a direct correlation between making employees comfortable and their willingness to stick around and work later especially when in a start up mode. This little thing really made a difference.

EVERYBODY got stock options no matter what level. People who had never known or cared about what their company traded at on the exchange were suddenly checking the board daily. It really added motivation for all us to do our best and improve the bottom line.

EVERYBODY got a bonus of some kind. Even 5% of the lowest salary tier was significant enough to keep everyone’s motivation level at max all the time.

When the tech explosion hit, our company embraced it and actively encouraged it’s use. They gave out free phones and service to every employee, gave every employee e-mail without restricting its use, internet the same way. Some may not remember when this stuff was new, but I do, and it was interesting to see how our company dealt with it compared to how my friends employers did. Many of my friends were always amazed at how cool our company was and wondered how they could get on board here.

When the merger was announced, we were told that the bigger company was much excited to learn about how we defied the odds and became the success we were. They kept quite a few of our executives on, and for some of the smaller cultural aspects and perks, the leadership touted an adopt and go strategy to choose the path more beneficial to the employee over all else. I can tell you I bought into it big time and was very excited about the future.

Unfortunately, it starting to appear that it may have been a bunch of lip service. Everyday we discover some subtle nuance that indicates a move towards the old white shirt/blue tie world of old. A world where your job is becoming what I refer to as “Binderized” (everything you need to know about your job is in the binder they give on your first day) and it’s extremely disappointing.

A positive and inclusive culture means huge success in my book. If you want the best work out of your people find a way to make them comfortable and find a way to make them care. I gather this is exactly what you’re talking about in this post.

[Jonathan Marks]

You didn't say which culture you prefered, but I guess the ones that radiate a collaborative culture, which keep demonstrating that great ideas can change the future - and listen to all levels in the company, are the ones that will be around 20 years from now. Once routine and egos hit management, it really is the beginning of the end.

Great blog by the way. I learn a lot from your insights.

[Mike Horn]

I also find it interesting that when startups do try to change their cultures, usually after beginning to achieve some success, that they try to dictate a new culture rather than creating a culture. Company culture is definitely an area where actions speak louder than words...

[JayR]

Usually, a company's culture is a direct reflection of its leader. This is particularly true with younger technology companies, where there hasn't been adequate time for middle management and bureaucracy to develop. It's very hard to develop a new culture under the same leadership, because you're basically counting on a leopard to change its spots. It's also hard to maintain a culture when leadership changes, unless care is taken to find a new leader who buys into the existing philosophy.

[Dave Chase]

Did you get a chance to meet with people in the sales & marketing side of Google? For obvious reasons, the engineering heritage is held up as a strong suit of Google but I'm progressively hearing more about the sales & marketing side of the house struggling with politics, Peter Principle, etc. as it ages/grows. It sounds quite similar to what happened to Microsoft. It can create quite a bit of organizational drag and from what I'm hearing they don't have the HR basics in place that MSFT had (e.g., structured hiring processes, review objectives, etc.). My sample size is modest so I'm curious if others are hearing similar tales outside of the product development teams.

[Jerome Alexander]

The true culture of any organization can be easily assessed by conversing with its internal skeptics and cynics. Although the views od these individuals are always devalued and ostracized by the "elites", they are a valuable resource that is always overlooked. Read more in "160 Degrees of Deviation: The Case for the Corporate Cynic" by Jerome Alexander