On a Mission

http://a16z.com/2014/02/11/on-a-mission/

by doh • 12 years ago

57 32 12 years ago

gatehouse• 12 years ago

AFAIK, Zuckerberg, and Page and Brin, STILL have voting control of their companies, all the way from day 0 to IPO. So not just "I want the world's information to be indexed", but "I want to index the world's information". etc.

jonathanjaeger• 12 years ago

Or they think they're the best people equipped to do that and they don't want to give up control and have the mission lose out (perfectly understandable). It's not purely self-interested.

thisisrobv• 12 years ago

The irony of, "[t]he Machiavellian view on this is if you are the founder you actually want to pretend you have a huge ideological mission, even if you don’t."

I've seen a lot of founders actually start off this way, they come up with a mission post product. The best are actually capable of being delusional enough to believe this mission over time.

thrush• 12 years ago

This resonates well with a16z is doing (imagine they were a startup, and they were investing in themselves).

a16z wants to help people (who are predominantly using software and engineering) change the world. They plan to do this through VC investments, high caliber recruiting, etc. and will happen to become wealthy along the way.

normloman• 12 years ago

"The Machiavellian view on this is if you are the founder you actually want to pretend you have a huge ideological mission, even if you don’t. And I guess you would rather do that, than not have one, but clearly it helps enormously to have a real mission."

Which is why all HN job postings contain keywords like "change" and "disrupt."

Also, if you have a purely ideological mission with no plan to make money with it, you shouldn't be starting a business and getting investors. You should be starting a non profit and getting donors. The difference is, investors expect to be payed back.

oscargrouch• 12 years ago

Also, if you have a purely ideological mission with no plan to make money with it, you shouldn't be starting a business and getting investors. You should be starting a non profit and getting donors. The difference is, investors expect to be payed back.

Or you can have the best of both worlds: make the thing you are doing because you want change sustainable, so you dont have to beg to anybody and can just go on making it happen..

I think is that what he was talking about.. you try to make a dream come true.. than make it sustainable somehow.. becoming rich? maybe.. but thats not the primary goal.

I think it has a lot to do with the personality.. Machiavel already stated that if a king need troops, its better to hire mercenaries only as a last case.. soldiers that fight for ideals are much more powerful.. i've read that when i was a teenager and never forget of that part..

So the ideological fellow is unbeatable, because passion is the most powerful human fuel ever "invented" :)

nswanberg• 12 years ago

From a time when one had to read the back of the software box to check for Windows or MacOS compatibility: "Mosaic Communications Corporation intends to be the premier provider of open software that enables people and companies to exchange information and conduct commerce over the Internet and other global networks."

beat3• 12 years ago

I don't know if I have a mission or not.

On one hand, in the "Rich or King?" formulation, I want to get rich. I don't want to be running my company twenty years from now. I'll want to retire (hopefully a very wealthy man) and go do other things that interest me - because there are far, far more interesting things to do in the world than there is time to do them anyway. Getting rich is, among other things, a way of simplifying the process of doing all those things that are interesting but not financially self-sustaining.

On the other hand, I want to change this little corner of the world, where a bunch of professional nerds like me suffer seemingly endless frustration and grief trying to make the computer systems that we get paid to work on and occasionally love actually keep running. I hate system downtime, in part because I hate the kind of work involved in downtime - digging through different systems for clues, calling buddies on other teams for their clues, giving status reports on the status reports, and beating our collective heads against the wall trying to get the information required to actually do our jobs - that is, get the downed systems back up again.

I admit it, I like working on big enterprise systems. I like debugging them, and I like making them better. It may be Stockholm Syndrome at this point, but it's pretty fun sometimes. And I like my colleagues who work on them with me, the special balance of discipline and imagination it takes to do ops and development on really big systems. I want to make their lives better.

And then one day I had this idea, and saw how I could make life a little better for all of us, and save time, money, and credibility for our employers in the bargain. And if I can get rich along the way, all the better.

Is that a mission? Or just a mission statement? Does it matter?

yapcguy• 12 years ago

Do you really need to be rich to do the things that interest you?

If not, and you're not in financial hardship, start doing those things you love now.

Enjoy your life before responsibilities and old age catch upto you.

beat3• 12 years ago

Old age is already catching up with me. I'm in my late 40s, twice the age of the theoretical ideal founder. Conscious awareness of your mortality is a great motivator.

I have a working definition for "rich"... that is, have enough fungible wealth "in the bank" (low-risk investment) that you could live comfortably for the rest of your days, without ever again selling your time for money. By that definition, I'm not rich.

And frankly, middle-class life is a trap in that regard. You can be comfortable at the moment, and save money so you can be responsible for your own needs when you're too old and worn out to work anymore. That sucks. I've been on that treadmill a long time, and I'm getting the hell off it.

I already do things I love - but not as much as I want to, mostly because of the 40+ hours 50 weeks a year that a dayjob entails. I spend more time dayjobbing than anything I love, and I generally don't love the dayjob.

On the other hand, that makes me a lot more determined and thoughtful about my approach to a startup than a lot of the younger founders I've seen. I want to do this once. I don't want to have to do it again.

And a final thought on this... after a discussion many months ago with another entrepreneur (doing a medical device), I thought long and hard about my motivation. And here it is, in a nutshell... creating a company and a product that makes a real dent in how big enterprise software projects are done is the biggest thing I can realistically imagine myself doing. I'm aiming for the highest target that I believe I can hit. Getting rich is, frankly, just a side effect of that. And pride will carry me when love is no longer enough.

mchusma• 12 years ago

Hmmm...I see signals of both in what you say:

I think the mission to make a life a little better in a specific way is a true mission. Solving a frustration that you truly hate is a common factor in many successes.

That said, I also tend to see the most successful entrepreneurs much more concerned about the mission than retirement. Not sure if go on to other things meant Bill Gates style or tropical beach style. If you are truly mission oriented, then you would presumably care more about the mission than yourself. Retirement is an afterthought.

beat3• 12 years ago

This gets back to the problem that the "mission" when we talk about software startups generally involves making a lot of money as well. If you want a software mission without promise of wealth for the work, you do open source (I actually briefly considered open sourcing this project, and I wouldn't say it is absolutely ruled out. But that's a one-way hash function, so there's no need to commit now).

This past weekend, I gave up most of the time I'd normally spend working on my startup on something else instead - playing in two different bands in a jug band competition! We're talking about people who actively opposed to paying anybody anything for the work, who fight tooth and nail to win temporary possession of a freaking waffle iron! And I'd be really damned proud if one of my bands won that waffle iron, too - it's been a prize for over 30 years.

What did I get out of it? My closest musical partner and I put together something of a dream band of some of our musician friends, and we jammed out Stairway to Heaven in under five minutes in front of 300 people. Financially, that's worth less than nothing. Emotionally, I'll always remember that moment.

Playing good music is a mission for me. Supporting the musical community and cultural history of Minneapolis is a mission. But those aren't missions that pay my mortgage.

This is what squicks me out a little about all the people marketing themselves on the internet who claim to have a "passion" to do <something boring>. They might find the work interesting and rewarding, but passionate? It sounds dishonest and self-serving.

I'd like to build something that is valuable, something that lasts, something that is truly hard to build in a multi-year way. Is that a mission? Maybe. Is that a passion? NO. The desire to create something big and powerful, that's passion. But the thing I'm actually creating? That's the map, not the territory.

CapitalistCartr• 12 years ago

He is making the mistake of looking at the successes without knowing the failed companies' strategies. The successes may have this in common, but so may the failures.

jkw• 12 years ago

Small note: I think what Steve Jobs said was "make a dent in the universe", not "make a ding in the universe"

choppa• 12 years ago

why is this on hacker news? this is just an advertisement, e.g. to speculators

iandanforth• 12 years ago

I am building robots to create strong AI. I've tried to think of something more important and impactful than strong AI, but that's it. It's why I'm here. How about you?

bglazer• 12 years ago

That sounds wonderfully interesting. Care to be a bit more specific?

johnrob• 12 years ago

Should the mission slide go before or after the up-and-to-the-right graph? :)

Joking aside, the last reason to have a mission is to get funding. The work is not worth the effort if it isn't meaningful. You are always optimizing for life, not money (although money is a part of life of course).

unclebucknasty6• 12 years ago

I'm not buying this.

First, it's funny that "building great products" is considered a mission. No. That's what a company does to make money. Money is the mission. If you just want to build great stuff, then don't call it a product or don't charge for it. Start a non-profit, build it, then give it away.

Not to be pedantic, but it just feels like the last stop of self-worshiping capitalism when it's considered a mission to build stuff for sale. That's kind of the default with capitalism. The question is, what's the real vision or meaning behind the product/company? What goal is it meant to achieve?

Beyond that, he's making these statements at a time when we are seeing a glut of the most trivial products/services that are not exactly world-changing. In fact, many have decried the lack of meaning and unwillingness to tackle hard problems in SV.

So, it just seems like we're moving the goalposts. SV has become a vision-less, vapid place, that simply seeks the easiest path to making money? No problem. Just redefine the word "meaning" and the word "mission" and voila!

earbitscom• 12 years ago

It takes money to build things at scale. Our company has an awesome mission to empower artists by providing them with high quality exposure. Nobody is donating millions of dollars for us to do this out of the kindness of their hearts and their charity should go to starving people. That doesn't mean what we do isn't important or meaningful. In the absence of a truly charitable cause, the only way to provide this solution is by bringing in revenue and there is nothing wrong with charging for a service that provides value. Marc is saying that they look for founders doing things they find meaning in because you build something bigger when you do it for a purpose beyond money. That doesn't mean it doesn't take earning money to fulfill the mission.

unclebucknasty6• 12 years ago

I don't mean that there's something wrong with making money. I am not even saying that there's something wrong with making money purely for the sake of making money. I also don't suggest that seeking-profit means that a company has no mission.

I am simply saying that making a product, in itself, is not a mission to be held above the aim of any other capitalist endeavor. That is, simply saying "my mission is to build great products" is meaningless. Is that it? Full-stop? Well, if so, then just say "my mission is to make money"; else, what is otherwise the point of building something great and calling it a product?

And, what we see coming out of SV has been to a large extent void of any real mission apart from making money. So, contrary to the article, I think that there are plenty of people from investors to founders to employees who are simply chasing a buck. So much so, that from outside SV (and from many quarters within), it has become the understood ethos of the valley.

If that's the deal, then OK. But, let's not pretend it's something else.

argumentum3• 12 years ago

Stradivarius was on a mission to build the most beautiful and melodious violins ever made. He also sold these instruments to make money so he could continue and improve his craft.

These things aren't contradictory.

Zuck said it well: "we don't build services to make more money, we make more money to build better services." (paraphrased)

unclebucknasty6• 12 years ago

Nothing in my comment was meant to state that having a mission and making money are mutually exclusive. Please see my other comments elsewhere on this thread.

But, there is a difference between the Stradivarius scenario, as you've put it, and the Steve Jobs quote. Stradivarius's mission was to build the most beautiful, melodious violins. He then sold them to live. OTOH, Jobs said he wanted to build beautiful products that "people love".

So, his "mission" was building "products" for his audience (not for its own sake). He even described what he was building as "products"--that is, items to be sold at profit. Not melodious violins. But, products. That's key. Building items that people will buy is hardly a mission, beyond that of any capitalist endeavor.

As for the Zuckerberg quote, it really sounds great, but I don't buy it for a second. It's also notable that the quote appeared in the S1 statement for FB's IPO filing.

babesh• 12 years ago

Then why did they invest in Zynga multiple times?

data_app2• 12 years ago

I think many people on this thread don't understand the importance of "mission". Mission plays a big role in hiring the best talent - without a mission, you are like a rudderless ship. You may make money in the short-term but you are not building a great company for the future.

On a Mission

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