Smash Notes

Back to The 20-Year Bet to Make Fusion Energy Work | Jeff Lawson, with Jeff Lawson.

Is Move Fast and Break Things a Brilliant Value?

Jeff Lawson calls move fast and break things one of the most brilliant values in corporate history, even though he does not love a lot of the culture Facebook has become. The signal to noise ratio on the statement is huge because it tells people they have permission to break things.

A slogan such as do anything to win, or we are here to win, works as an invitation for shenanigans, so the real boundary has to be said out loud. At most companies the assumption is that breaking something means trouble and a career-limiting move. Move fast and break things does the heavy lifting: if the break serves progress and moving fast, people have permission to behave differently than they would at any other company, as long as they are learning and moving fast.

Grokipedia·Facebook

Transcript

The 20-Year Bet to Make Fusion Energy Work | Jeff Lawson ·

Grit

More from this episode

  1. Why Does Scaling Sales Need a Playbook?Jeff Lawson says a company cannot scale sales until it has a playbook, and that playbook comes only after product market fit.
  2. When Did Twilio Find Product Market Fit?Jeff Lawson says Twilio saw developers sign up, enter a credit card, and build useful things with Twilio for themselves and for the companies they worked for…
  3. Are Most Startups Distribution Constrained?Jeff Lawson says almost every startup is distribution constrained, and very few startups are product constrained.
  4. Is AI Token Revenue More Durable Than Expected?Jeff Lawson says AI token revenue has proven a lot more durable than he would have guessed three or four years ago.
  5. Why Can Jeff Lawson Wait 20 Years on Fusion?Jeff Lawson can wait 20 years on fusion because a long shot is a luxury he can afford, and he has nothing left to prove.
  6. How Does the Onion Make Money With No Ads?Jeff Lawson says The Onion now has more than 5X the revenue it had before he bought it, and the site runs with no ads. Readers support the paper directly.
  7. How Big Is Jeff Lawson's Fusion Company?Jeff Lawson finished the deals with the lab last summer, basically last September, about a year earlier, and got the company off the ground with 450 million…
  8. When Should a Startup Write Its Values Down?Jeff Lawson says about a year in, or around 50 people, is a good time for a startup to write its values down.
  9. How Did Twilio Employees Earn a Red Track Jacket?Jeff Lawson says employees earned the red track jacket by writing an app on Twilio, demoing it in front of their peers, and only then receiving the jacket.

People

More answers like this

More with Joubin Mirzadegan

Related episodes

Plays from this note through the rest of the episode.

Note

Weekly highlights

One letter a week.

The notes worth hearing, with the minute they were said.