Horowitz: Counterintuitive rules set culture by forcing employees to ask why
Ben Horowitz · 20VC: a16z's Ben Horowitz on How To Create An Environment of Trust with Founders, How and Why Creating Shocking Rules Is So Impactful To Culture & What The Samurai, Shaka Senghor and Toussaint Teach Us About Company Culture Building · Oct 28, 2019 · at 12:17
Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, explains his philosophy on corporate culture design during an interview with Harry Stebbings on 20VC.
0:00 / 0:34exact quote · 34.9s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Probably the key thing on a shocking rule is that it has to surprise people. People have to ask themselves, why in the world do we have that rule? That seems crazy. And one of my favorite rules like that, of course, is Tom Coughlin's, if you're on time, you're late. That rule even sounds crazy. And the reason it's important that it sounds that is because if people don't question the rule, then you don't get to the why. And having a rule that kind of everybody is living with, that's very counterintuitive, makes people understand the why, and every time they comply with that rule, they're reminded of why they're doing it, and that kind of thing can really set the culture”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Ben Horowitz
Professional CEOs struggle to innovate more than founders struggle to manage
“And we thought there was a reason for that because it was much harder for a professional CEO to learn to be an innovator than for an innovator to learn to be a CEO.”
Steve Ballmer's executive presence won Microsoft the early cloud battle against Google
“But, you know, in the early days of that battle, when they had way better product, Google had a way better product, Balmer would, and Balmer's still CEO at the time, would show up in companies and say, I'm here. Is Larry Page going to come visit? And of course…”
Horowitz: Consensus hiring policies for executive roles are destructive
“A lot of times you'll see rules in early stage companies where, okay, everybody's got to vote thumbs up in order for us to hire this person, or everybody's got to score them eight out of 10 or better or whatever. But with an executive, that kind of policy can …”
Horowitz: Andreessen Horowitz faced criticism for marketing VC before competitors copied it
“It was basically known as a given that you did not market Venture capital firms. Nobody had ever marketed their venture capital firm in any kind of context, and it's definitely the decision we got the most criticism for before everybody copied it”
Horowitz: Macroeconomics is a complex system that is fundamentally unanalyzable
“There's nothing more unpredictable than macroeconomics. Like, it is a very, very complex Complex system. You know, it's path dependent. It's not analyzable. You know, everybody's always making predictions, and they're always wrong until they're right, like a b…”
Okta suffered severe employee attrition early on due to improper sales strategy
“Okta went through a very difficult time early on and they had like, you know, very deep attrition. And so Todd asked me to go talk to the company about why like why people should stay in the company. Like it was that bad.”