Re:“Don't fuck up the culture” – A letter to the Airbnb team
by mikeg8 on Monday April 21, 2014 @12:26AM
(#7619786)
>An official executive statement on almost anything is a sign that X is a big problem. Otherwise they'd be focusing on something else.
I disagree. I think his point was that he is choosing to focus on culture over other tasks because it is the thing he values more than anything else. Wanting to improve something doesn't mean it is inherently broken. Ex. working out when you are already in great shape.
It's funny to me how most people in this thread assume his attention to the culture automatically means it's messed up. Can you not put conscious effort into things proactively?
I agree that you can't direct culture. But writing is one way you can transmit it. At some point, the number of CEO-minutes per employee gets pretty small, so the CEO wants to make sure everybody hears his take on it, broadcast media are what he has. He then also has to live it, of course, or it ends up being the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do horseshit that everybody has experienced.