What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture

by Ben Horowitz

your culture is how your company makes decisions when you’re not there.

Companies—just like gangs, armies, and nations—are large organizations that rise or fall because of the daily microbehaviors of the human beings that compose them.

If your product isn’t superior or the market doesn’t want it, your company will fail no matter how good its culture is.

Who you are is not the values you list on the wall. It’s not what you say at an all-hands. It’s not your marketing campaign. It’s not even what you believe. It’s what you do.

In any human interaction, the required amount of communication is inversely proportional to the level of trust.

Company cultures organize around a simple goal: build a product or service that people want.

Building a great culture means adapting it to circumstances.

A value is merely a belief, but a virtue is a belief that you actively pursue or embody.

Culture is a strategic investment in the company doing things the right way when you are not looking.

If you only listen to music from one race then you probably do not understand music. If you only hire talented people from one race or gender, then you probably do not understand talent.