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Ben Horowitz: Culture Is What You Do When Nobody Gives You the Answer

By Ben Horowitz · Leadership · 1 min read

Horowitz asked every veteran CEO what to focus on. They all said culture. Then the advice stopped.

Key Points

Culture is how your company behaves when you are not looking
It is not in your OKRs or mission statement — it is in the small daily behaviors
You cannot measure it through performance reviews — it spreads through cues people take about what it takes to succeed

How does your company behave when you're not looking? Do they return the call? If it's a person who's a lower rank than them, did they return it that day, the next day, the next week? All those things are your culture.

Every CEO Said the Same Thing

Horowitz: "When I became CEO the first time, I asked all the veteran CEOs what should I focus on. They pretty consistently said: Ben, pay attention to the culture. I said great, how do I do that? And that's kind of where the advice stopped."

Most of what has been written about culture is trivial. Based on one organizational behavior experiment. Nothing useful for a founder trying to actually shape how people act.

It Is Not Your Mission Statement

Horowitz: "How does your company behave, particularly when you're not looking? Do they show up to meetings on time? If somebody calls them, do they return the call? If it's a person who's a lower rank than them, did they return it? Did they return it that day, the next day, the next week?"

Horowitz: "All those things which are not in your goals and objectives, not in your mission statement, not in your OKRs — they're how you behave on a daily basis. How people experience your company. What you're like to do business with. What you're like to work at. All that stuff is your culture."

All those things which are not in your goals and objectives, not in your mission statement, not in your OKRs — they're how you behave on a daily basis.

You Cannot Put It in a Performance Review

Horowitz: "You can't just do the simple thing. You can't say we'll put it in your performance review — did you follow the cultural values? Well, you don't know if they received that phone call. So you definitely don't know if they returned it."

Horowitz: "What's going to drive the culture are all these little behaviors. All these little cues that people take about: this is what I have to do to succeed in this company."

What's going to drive the culture are all these little behaviors, all these little cues that people take about what they have to do to succeed.