This is something I think about a lot. Right now, our startup is just the co-founders and one intern, and we don't even have office space yet. But assuming we are successful and start growing, at some point we will have employees, office space, offices, etc. And what I find myself pondering is "how do we make sure we create the kind of culture and environment that we want to work in, and that other people will want to work in... and how do we preserve it as we grow?"
Now, you might say "Mindcrime, you're in a 2 person startup with no revenue yet, if you spend 2 seconds a year thinking about this stuff you're wasting time". But I think it's important for the founders to think hard about culture and work to start embedding that culture into the very DNA of the company, from the early days, and actively look for ways to resist the "culture decay" that @sgblank talks about in this post.
Assuming you have a founding team who retain a substantial degree of control over the firm as it grows (ala, say, Sergey and Larry, or Zuck) you wonder "is it possible to preserve the best part of what makes the company great, even if grows in size 10x, 100x, or more"?
Now, you might say "Mindcrime, you're in a 2 person startup with no revenue yet, if you spend 2 seconds a year thinking about this stuff you're wasting time". But I think it's important for the founders to think hard about culture and work to start embedding that culture into the very DNA of the company, from the early days, and actively look for ways to resist the "culture decay" that @sgblank talks about in this post.
Assuming you have a founding team who retain a substantial degree of control over the firm as it grows (ala, say, Sergey and Larry, or Zuck) you wonder "is it possible to preserve the best part of what makes the company great, even if grows in size 10x, 100x, or more"?