In 2000, we were growing fast. And we were still hiring people with good judgment. But even people with good judgment had questions about culture and rules—and they shouldn’t always have to find me or Reed to ask them. We started to ask ourselves: What if you could build a process that was meant for people who had great judgment? What if you could free them from all the petty restrictions that drive the top performers crazy? How can we scale up this set of ideals that came so naturally to us, so that a growing company can benefit from them? How do you codify culture?
