I think it depends on whose perspective you're asking for.

I think from an employee perspective, seeing leaders talk about squishy things like "company values" can feel hokey and gimmicky. After all, even Enron had plaques hanging in their headquarters about their values. So are values just the sort of snake-oil marketing buzzwords you use to sell how great and "innovative" your organization to investors and prospective employees (e.g. WeWork)?

I certainly think that this is true to some extent for most companies.

At the same time I also think they're really important for founders/leaders to articulate and stick with. It explicitly formalizes a set of moral norms, behavioral patterns and ideologies you want those who are part of your company to abide by. They're pithy shorthands for verbally and explicitly describing your company's aspirational culture to others who are not part of it.

I think a lot of us feel disgruntled and frustrated when leaders profess one set of values, and seem to live by another. I think many of us would prefer to work for a company where the values aren't explicitly stated, but they're followed than for a company where the reverse is true (e.g. Enron).

At it's core, I think having a set of company values is basically having a list of aspirational behavioral norms that you have agreed to collectively prioritize. It allows people to check people's decisions against these norms (e.g. "Hey, I think you're doing something sneaky that makes our company look good to prospective clients, but I think it's important we respect our value of 'No Shenanigans.'"), and also make decisions (e.g. "One thing we value is to 'Not Settle'. Are we settling in this product decision?").

Done well, it can be really motivating and purposeful.

Done hypocritically or inconsistently, it just feels like another marketing gimmick that big companies do.

I've worked at two companies that have a definite set of values: Amazon and Shopify. In both companies the values serve two purposes. In decision-making, they act as something you can point at when you weigh choices. And in performance evaluations, they act as something you can point at to say that you or other people demonstrated certain values.

In this way they act as a norming force to keep everyone in a large company aligned on how decisions should be made and what behaviours are considered good. One of the biggest challenges a large organization faces is keeping all its parts aligned, and a specific set of values helps with that.

It helps motivate people and make them feel like they're part of a mission while forgetting that they're only there for the paycheck. Motivated employees are great because the work longer and harder for less pay.

Depends on the organization and I suspect (although I really cannot prove this part) industry. Done wrong, they are words on a board, a hollow chant, or pretty, colorful illusion. On the other extreme, they are the reason some folks in the military didn't flee like sane people and held their ground against some really awful odds. Thankfully, most businesses don't have to deal with the later.

I work at a place that cares about its values, because they are the cultural aspirations of the people we serve, and we are one of the organizations that are trying to preserve those values.

I dearly want those words to succeed and not be empty platitudes, but the only way that works is if they actually provide guidance and the individual decision maker considers them with each decision. Often they become empty words when folks are "too cool for school" or just have other goals.

I've seen leaders who believe in an organization's values and those that don't. For myself, I do like those that follow the values better because they provide one bit of stability that I crave: predictable decisions. Chaos is fun sometimes, but a damn pain when work is concerned. Its interesting to me that often when describing a failed corporation the "getting away from core values" is often cited.

They also provide a bit of self examination. Do I actually have a set of values? Would I cut and run if my values conflict with my comfort? Are the values as acted upon by where I work compatible with my own internal values? If not, then you might not find your career fulfilling at that organization.

At my company, they are cultural principles that make us different from other companies, that bleed into our hiring practice and day-to-day work.

For example, "we are egolessly mission driven" is one of our values: this helps us recruit the right people (drawing people want to work at a mission-oriented company; turning away people who just want a random job), as well as helping us notice and nudge employees who might be (accidentally) engaging in political maneuvering.

"we focus ruthlessly on the most important thing" helps us filter recruits out who don't want to take work seriously, helps make our Slack channels much quieter / less spammy than most companies, and helps employees self-improve along the axis of protecting their focus time.

Stating explicitly what you care about, and talking about these things a lot, is a huge aspect of how a company defines its culture as it grows beyond ~ 10 people or so.

Most groups in life have shared values. Your church, school, nation, family, swim team, supper club, condo parking lot etc. all have some mix of implicit or explicit values if you look hard enough for them.

Some are soft, some are hard. “Fair play” and “equality” are very common ones, which overlap mostly with “No Shenanigans” in this example. The purpose of values is to codify acceptable behavior, and promote a nurturing environment.

“Provide exemplary HTTP endpoint documentation“ would be a bit more Twilio specific, but the ethos of the shared value itself is a common one. It’s a pity that in the 21st century the only values agreements most post education adults enter into are the ones with their employer, but we live in a very individualist society.

many people have the expectation that they can know what they are signing up for when joining any group. company values are the values a company is claiming you can expect and hold them to when trying to make decisions.

even corrupt dumpster fire companies tend to try and honor their corporate values as a kind of tie breaker. I know of a company that is so corrupt it routinely has to fire people who created fake roles and then secretly hired family members for them; which has problems with backstabbing, etc. and is crazy political but when it comes down to it will actually try to honor the stated company ideals.

For most companies it's internal marketing.