The Hard Thing About Hard Things

We were a public company, and the losses were all too visible. To make matters worse, we needed to win those deals in order to beat Wall Street’s projections, so the company felt tremendous pressure. Many of our smartest people came to me with ideas for avoiding the battle: “Let’s build a lightweight version of the product and go down-market.” “Let’s acquire a company with a simpler architecture.” “Let’s focus on service providers.” All these approaches reinforced to me was that we weren’t facing a market problem. The customers were buying; they just weren’t buying our product. This was not a time to pivot. So I said the same thing to every one of them: “There are no silver bullets for this, only lead bullets.” They did not want to hear that, but it made things clear: We had to build a better product. There was no other way out. No window, no hole, no escape hatch, no back door. We had to go through the front door and deal with the big, ugly guy blocking it. Lead bullets.

The most famous quote from the entire book, and if there’s only one thing you read in this post — read this. Just because there isn’t an easy solution to your problems, does not mean there isn’t a hard solution. A solution exists, even if you don’t like it.

There comes a time in every company’s life where it must fight for its life. If you find yourself running when you should be fighting, you need to ask yourself, “If our company isn’t good enough to win, then do we need to exist at all?”

The conclusion of the first quotation. I also talk about this in my speech on why startups are hard. Every company will have this moment, so be ready for it.

There may be nothing scarier in business than facing an existential threat. So scary that many in the organization will do anything to avoid facing it. They will look for any alternative, any way out, any excuse not to live or die in a single battle. I see this often in startup pitches.

I used to judge people for this, but I believe this is simply human nature. There’s a big bad thing eating away at you, but because you don’t want to think about it, you’d rather focus on problems that are easier to solve. If you want to be a CEO / founder, you have to get used to solving the hardest problems. Even if it means many days of beating your head against the wall without any progress whatsoever.

In good organizations, people can focus on their work and have confidence that if they get their work done, good things will happen for both the company and them personally. It is a true pleasure to work in an organization such as this. Every person can wake up knowing that the work they do will be efficient, effective, and make a difference for the organization and themselves. These things make their jobs both motivating and fulfilling.

Completely agree. It’s very difficult to get burned out regardless of the hours you work if you wake up every day knowing that you’re making a huge difference to your mission. If the line between you and the company’s goals are crystal clear, you will not be unmotivated.

When I refer to company culture, I am not referring to other important activities like company values and employee satisfaction. Specifically, I am writing about designing a way of working that will: * Distinguish you from competitors * Ensure that critical operating values persist such as delighting customers or making beautiful products * Help you identify employees who fit with your mission…

This is the most critical aspect about choosing core values as well. If they do not distinguish you from your competitors (like “integrity” or “love”), then they are useless.

Yes, yoga may make your company a better place to work for people who like yoga. It may also be a great team-building exercise for people who like yoga. Nonetheless, it’s not culture. It will not establish a core value that drives the business and helps promote it in perpetuity. It is not specific with respect to what your business aims to achieve. Yoga is a perk. Somebody keeping a pit bull in her cube may be shocking. The lesson learned—that animal lovers are welcome or that employees can live however they want—may provide some societal value, but it does not connect to your business in a distinguishing way. Every smart company values its employees. Perks are good, but they are not culture.

Bezos agrees as well - perks are not good retention mechanisms because you retain the wrong type of people: people who stay for the perks over the company’s mission.