Why Culture is Key

http://eng.wealthfront.com/2011/02/culture-is-key.html

by pascal-louis • 15 years ago

34 9 15 years ago

eng.wealthfront.com

Ten core values of Wealthfront, our engineering manifesto and why culture is so strategic to our company.

tastybites2• 15 years ago

This may sound controversial, but I wish people who make these self-serving recruiting posts would provide examples other than extremely large, established, or well-funded companies. How about the small 3-person outfit developing a produce/service paid for by hours and hours of grueling consulting work?

As a startup founder that wasn't funded by top tier venture capitalists (just customers) I have an extremely difficult time swallowing this narrative that anything I do has any direct mapping to Zappo's, Netflix, Netscape, Google, or (lol) Disney.

My day to day is concerned about finding customers, getting paid, managing expenditures, creating value (also known as doing real work), not worrying about how to define some sort of 'culture'. My culture is finding customers and getting paid. It's a culture of hustling for sales and doing professionally acceptable levels of work under enormous time and resource constraints with clients that don't really care that I'm trying to develop product.

Wealthfront raised $10.5M from investors including Marc Andreessen.

pascal-louis• 15 years ago

Our goal is to create a large independent company, and are quite far from the bootstrap startup you describe. What you are describing is http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/why-fighter-pilots-run-star... and what I'm after is http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/why-fighter-pilots-run-star...

Both models are valid, and both models require different approaches. Steve Blank will be talking about this soon at Wealthfront and you should feel free to join.

As for the self-serving recruiting post... we're not recruiting anyone this year!

tastybites2• 15 years ago

Hmm, is that a small bit of condescension I detect in your response? Our goal is also to create a large independent company, not build a $500k/year online TODO list company or whatever it is you have in mind (our revenues surpassed that in year 1).

I'm not really sure what you mean by 'independent', though, because all companies depend on their customers.... (QED?)

Here are some large, independent companies in our space:

RAX, TMRK (well, not anymore I guess), peer1.com, he.net, IBM

From what I can tell your competitors are the large mutual funds, ETFs, and retail wealth management, so I'm sure you will achieve success, as it's a large and proven market.

And as far as not recruiting this year - web content doesn't disappear after a year.

nswanberg• 15 years ago

Have you read http://sivers.org/delegate ? That might be more in line with your experience.

The biggest reason why you see posts from well-funded companies on culture, aside from recruiting, is because they are the ones that are hiring quickly and have a large group of people that must make decisions on a company's behalf in that company's best interest. It doesn't strike me as necessary for a very small company to even have those concerns.

"[F]inding customers, getting paid, managing expenditures, creating value" sounds exactly right for how you describe your company.

seiji• 15 years ago

Also see http://blognewcomb.squarespace.com/essays/2010/10/14/cult-cr... about how to bootstrap a culture and/or cult.

unshift• 15 years ago

i've noticed these "culture" posts tend to come from people trying to set it, not people trying to live within it.

in my experience typical high-tech R&D department workplace culture is one of nerds who are technically extremely competent, but communication issues are very common and people tend to be passive-aggressive. one-upsmanship abounds. the culture expects long hours for no overtime, the "i'm here for a paycheck" attitude is frowned upon, and the work is not anywhere as cool as corporate propaganda makes it out to be.

i may be jaded but i don't see how some higher-up preaching about "aligning interests" and "being passionate" is actually affecting any real day-to-day issues.

a more honest article might be about hiring people who are similar to existing employees, in terms of personality and priorities. maybe you only want to hire people who like to work 24/7, or maybe people who want to "change the world" through gluing together webservice APIs, or maybe you just want warm bodies to fill chairs.* but i guess there's no patting yourself on the back there and it doesn't sound as cool as screening for "culture-fit".

* not a comment on wealthfront. I don't know what they do or how they operate. just a general observation.

bioh42_2• 15 years ago

I'm hoping passive aggressiveness and lack of communication is not typical of high-tech or R&D.

I have no trouble believing it is common and maybe even typical of BIG companies, even if you're not in the R&D department.

I have worked for large high tech corporations and while there were death-marches at least there wasn't a crippling lack of communication and passive aggression. Sadly I am currently experiencing both of the latter at another Big Co's R&D department.

But I have found startups and small businesses to be refreshingly full of passion and free of BS.

This is why my thoughts revolve around working either for myself or at least partly for myself as a share holder in a startup.

mattbaker• 15 years ago

I understand the sentiment. Speaking as a relatively new employee however (< 6mo) I can say Wealthfront practices what they preach. Communication here has been really incredible, discussions are frank and I haven't seen a single passive-aggressive act since joining. I do think the culture is important, it changes the way we work as a team for the better. If that's a day-to-day issue I don't know what is.

I understand this might just come off as another guy at Wealthfront drinking the kool-aid but I mean it sincerely. The people here are as adept at teamwork and communication as they are software. That's why I upvoted the post, not to tow the company line but because I think Pascal's article is relevant and legitimately devoid of bullshit. Of course, YMMV!

frossie• 15 years ago

If stranded in an airport for hours, would you be happy to be with this person?

I just want to say that some of the best people I have worked with would fail this test.

Moreover, every time I hear one of those statements, I can't help thinking (fairly or unfairly - you are entitled to your opinion): what white business a few decades ago would have hired a black person with guidance like that? A woman? A gay man?

Hire for ability. Hire for work ethic. Hire for ingenuity. Hire for passion. Hire for cold analytical minds. Don't hire for someone to drink beer with. Please.

Why Culture is Key

Related Stories