A Good Place to Work *and* A World-Changing Product

My investor and role model Ben Horowitz wrote a fantastic entry the other day called “A Good Place to Work”.  I especially enjoyed his use of a real-life situation which we call can learn from, and the message is spot on: make your company a great place to work, because that’s what will keep your A players around at every level of the organization, when the organization inevitably faces challenging times.

What I feel like Ben didn’t mention–mostly because I believe he realizes it innately–is how crucial the actual selection of the market need [and product being created] is, for the company/project/team to survive its biggest challenges.

One of the best ways to keep employees happy is if they know they are working on changing the world.  In other words, when Ben writes “Being a good company is itself an end”, I actually thing it should read: "Being a good company is itself an end if the product or service being delivered is world-changing."

This is important to me, because I’ve been looking at a lot of the startups on Angel List lately, and I’ve been surprised by how few of the products meet that criteria.

Apple, Facebook, Google are all great places to work (for the most part), but what keeps amazing people there are that the companies are out to change the world.

If your company has a crusade that can make a dent in the universe, that will keep the strongest employees happy and around even during the dark times.  Otherwise, why even be here?

…and then, once your employees know what your crusade is, then you can focus on building a great company experience for the employees (see: Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success).

Thanks for making us think, Ben!