What You Do Is Who You Are: An expert guide to building your company’s culture

by Ben Horowitz

To really understand how this stuff works, I knew I had to dig deeper. So I asked myself, How many of the following questions can be resolved by turning to your corporate goals or mission statement? Is that phone call so important I need to return it today, or can it wait till tomorrow? Can I ask for a raise before my annual review? Is the quality of this document good enough or should I keep working on it? Do I have to be on time for that meeting? Should I stay at the Four Seasons or the Red Roof Inn? When I negotiate this contract, what’s more important: the price or the partnership? Should I point out what my peers do wrong, or what they do right? Should I go home at 5 p.m. or 8 p.m.? How hard do I need to study the competition? Should we discuss the color of this new product for five minutes or thirty hours? If I know something is badly broken in the company, should I say something? Whom should I tell? Is winning more important than ethics? The answer is zero. There aren’t any “right answers” to those questions. The right answers for your company depend on what your company is, what it does, and what it wants to be.