In our company wiki, we have one page pinned at the top. It’s called Culture.
Every great company must define its culture, and it’s often challenging to put the intangible feelings of working at a startup and the values you want to embody into words. That’s why this page contains a lot of videos, links to talks, images, and descriptions of who we want to emulate and why.
At the top of this page is a talk from Graham Weaver called “How to Win Without Crushing Your Soul.”
Here’s a transcript from my favorite portion of the talk:
“Tangibly and tactically throughout your lives, look fear in the eye and say to fear, ‘Not today. Today I’m going to play big. Today I’m going to play this asymmetric life.’
Now is the time to do hard things. There’s something that you fear right now—that’s exactly where you should go. You should be doing that thing. There’s something you’re putting off right now—you should be doing that thing.
Everything that you want is on the other side of worse first. Now is the time to do your thing.
There is suffering. You will suffer. So pick something worth suffering for.
And realize that you are underestimating yourself at your full power when you’re excited about something. That’s not going into your equation. Do it for decades, because ‘you excited for a decade’ knows no bounds. There is no obstacle that will not yield to you excited for a decade.
And finally, write your own story. No matter where you’re starting and no matter what role you have after school or where you are right now, it doesn’t matter. You can start today writing your story.
Inside of you, you have magic. You have your own life. You have something that’s special for you. And there’s really only one question you need to answer, which is: Are you going to give yourself permission to lead that life, to live that life, and to let that out?
That’s the question you’re going to answer over and over and over in your life from now on. Are you going to give yourself permission? It’s permission you need.”
To me, this clip represents every reason to join a startup.
You do it to play for the asymmetric upside of what could happen if this all works out.
To do that, you need three things: confidence, trust, and optimism.
Confidence in yourself and a willingness to see what you’re capable of.
Trust that the team you’re joining will take you further than you could go alone.
And optimism that no matter what happens, you’re better off for trying something hard than never trying at all.
Seeing individuals write their hero’s journey and being able to watch them overcome challenges from afar has become one of the most fulfilling parts of my life.
Our world is better off with more people taking risks and trying hard things because behind every crazy idea, large company, or innovation is somebody who took the first step and said, “Today I’m going to play this asymmetric life.”