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Agree people are always talking about it. But they're rarely doing a decent job of defining the culture, adhering to it, and hiring to it.

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It's great to define organizational culture, but let's keep in mind that it is bound to be very fluid in a new startup. When you're very small each new person will have a pretty significant effect on the culture of your organization (of course the marginal effect of each new worker would be diminishing). Over-defining it at the beginning could be a mistake in so creativity-intensive industries like hacking.

I'd actually take an approach of formally defining the culture once it has established itself (and is working well).

But well, there's still too many variables to consider. Personal culture of the founder(s) would be very important in picking the right approach. Although many people would like it to be，I don't see management becoming a hard science anytime soon.

I didn't mean to imply that you had to have the culture baked on day 1. But by the time you've moved beyond cofounders and are making hires, you better be well on your way to having it defined. Or you're doomed to wallow in misfits and repairing poor hires instead of moving rapidly.

And I totally agree that the founders drive and define the culture. It's their responsibility to establish it, manage it, and change it, if need be.

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