McDonnell: Investing in culture insulates startups against existential threats
Claire McDonnell · Claire McDonnell and Jennifer Kim on Building an Inclusive Company Culture · Y Combinator · Apr 20, 2018 · at 5:41
Claire McDonnell, co-founder and COO of True Link Financial, discusses startup culture with YC partner Kat Manalac.
0:00 / 0:40exact quote · 40.3s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“And I think the lesson we've learned over this time, over the last five years now, since we started back in 2013, late 20 12, is that the way you build your culture is by small investments every single day. And that rather than being a distraction from the business of running your company and from the sort of constant existential threat that you're under as a startup build investing in your culture actually insulates you against that threat. Right? So, being part of a team that trusts each other, where everyone believes they're being treated fairly, and they're all in it together, that's actually how you survive, not how you distract yourself from survival.”
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 Claire McDonnell
McDonnell: Prizing engineering teams is coded bias for certain races and genders
“I think that prizing certain teams at companies, so it used to be sales teams, now it's engineering teams, is I think prizing certain teams is actually a coded way of prizing certain races and genders.”
McDonnell: Inclusive culture is the only way startups retain key talent
“Fundamentally especially at early stages, you have to create an environment where your, all your employees and your most valuable employees that have your institutional knowledge
Want to keep coming back to work every day, want to ignore the emails from recrui…”
McDonnell: Research shows women and minorities get less credit and more blame
“So there's a lot of research that shows that women and people of color get less credit for their accomplishments and get blamed more or sort of It's the things they screw up are remembered more.”
McDonnell: Unchecked cognitive biases are the Achilles heel of inclusive culture
“So for me, the Achilles heel of an inclusive culture is unchecked biases. So it's letting all the cognitive biases in our head run rampant without checking them ourselves or creating ways for our colleagues to check them.”
McDonnell: Founders handling HR should designate alternative leaders for employee issues
“What I've realized recently is that it's as simple as saying, hey, if you have questions about this or issues about this, here's two to four other people you can talk to, right? It doesn't have to be me. Or like, if you have a problem with me, here are some ot…”