On a Mission
a16z.com
a16z.com
Joking aside, the last reason to have a mission is to get funding. The work is not worth the effort if it isn't meaningful. You are always optimizing for life, not money (although money is a part of life of course).
First, it's funny that "building great products" is considered a mission. No. That's what a company does to make money. Money is the mission. If you just want to build great stuff, then don't call it a product or don't charge for it. Start a non-profit, build it, then give it away.
Not to be pedantic, but it just feels like the last stop of self-worshiping capitalism when it's considered a mission to build stuff for sale. That's kind of the default with capitalism. The question is, what's the real vision or meaning behind the product/company? What goal is it meant to achieve?
Beyond that, he's making these statements at a time when we are seeing a glut of the most trivial products/services that are not exactly world-changing. In fact, many have decried the lack of meaning and unwillingness to tackle hard problems in SV.
So, it just seems like we're moving the goalposts. SV has become a vision-less, vapid place, that simply seeks the easiest path to making money? No problem. Just redefine the word "meaning" and the word "mission" and voila!
I am simply saying that making a product, in itself, is not a mission to be held above the aim of any other capitalist endeavor. That is, simply saying "my mission is to build great products" is meaningless. Is that it? Full-stop? Well, if so, then just say "my mission is to make money"; else, what is otherwise the point of building something great and calling it a product?
And, what we see coming out of SV has been to a large extent void of any real mission apart from making money. So, contrary to the article, I think that there are plenty of people from investors to founders to employees who are simply chasing a buck. So much so, that from outside SV (and from many quarters within), it has become the understood ethos of the valley.
If that's the deal, then OK. But, let's not pretend it's something else.
Those VCs are not AZ16 + those startups are not the future facebooks or googles of the world.
Perhaps not. But, when the article is quoting Jobs as saying:
“I want to make a ding in the universe. I want to make beautiful products that people love.”
It makes me wonder how we're defining mission. Making products that people love is what every company strives to do. Doesn't seem like much of a standard to me, and declaring that by so doing you hope to make a dent in the universe doesn't make it any moreso.
So, I'd ask Mr. Andreessen, "Is that it? Does the desire to make products that people love qualify for a16z's mission requirement?" Because, if so, then I'm having trouble seeing where that investment philosophy really differs.
The other part is with regard to recruiting and the overall SV ethos. It may be true that select people want to work for companies with a mission. And, maybe many do--all things being equal. But, his "insight" that a person would rather work for $120K plus a mission than $120K and no mission is self-evident and doesn't tell us anything. The test of his theory is whether people are willing to work for $60K plus a mission.
And the thing is we know that so many people are really just chasing a buck. We see this in what has been coming out of SV; the glut of copycat and uninspired businesses aimed at this or that trivial opportunity and the relative dearth of companies taking on really hard or "mission-worthy" challenges.
I am not saying that there are zero companies of the latter ilk. I am saying that this article is making statements about the current reality that just don't ring true. Look no further than the "fail-fast", "iterate quickly", "look for pivots", "find product-market fit" culture that has dominated SV over recent years. Do any of those things sound conducive to building companies that are on a mission? Or do they sound more applicable to companies that are just looking to make a buck any way they can?
Maybe Mr. Andreessen is decrying that same culture. But, the article doesn't help by making declarations about the current state that don't appear to be accurate.
These things aren't contradictory.
Zuck said it well: "we don't build services to make more money, we make more money to build better services." (paraphrased)
But, there is a difference between the Stradivarius scenario, as you've put it, and the Steve Jobs quote. Stradivarius's mission was to build the most beautiful, melodious violins. He then sold them to live. OTOH, Jobs said he wanted to build beautiful products that "people love".
So, his "mission" was building "products" for his audience (not for its own sake). He even described what he was building as "products"--that is, items to be sold at profit. Not melodious violins. But, products. That's key. Building items that people will buy is hardly a mission, beyond that of any capitalist endeavor.
As for the Zuckerberg quote, it really sounds great, but I don't buy it for a second. It's also notable that the quote appeared in the S1 statement for FB's IPO filing.
If there's a real difference, it's the various technological and economic revolutions that make it possible to combine the efforts of thousands of individuals to work in concert to make things that millions if not billions can afford and use.
The iPhone I'm holding isn't the product of a lone, solitary master craftsman, but hundreds of master craftsmen and engineers who honed their discipline in many different fields. This would not be possible without a organizational structure (corporation) that incentivizes them to work together.
I disagree (obviously). I don't know the Stradivari story. But, based on your initial description, Stradivari simply loved making instruments. He sold them only to make a living so that he could continue.
That's far different from a "mission" of simply "creating great products that people love", then mass producing them for sale.
But, you've kind of morphed your description of Stradivari now to make him sound more like a capitalist than a guy with a hobby who simply sold some of his creations out of sheer necessity.
So, whichever story you want to go with determines the "column" in which Stradivari belongs. Either way, my point is that there are two columns. However, if you think the difference is immaterial and my suggestion amounts to sophistry, then I can agree to disagree. I've pretty much given my best effort at clarifying what I believe is the distinction.
>This would not be possible without a organizational structure (corporation) that incentivizes them to work together
I completely disagree, but I don't see where it's relevant to the point I was trying to make which is, again, that making a product in itself is not a "mission" that distinguishes a company/person's purpose from any other profit-seeking company/person's purpose.
Jobs said a lot of things, and much of what he said is publicly available. Obviously, he did not simply mean build any product people might love .. or why does Apple only build computing devices?
Here's a better (and longer quote) by Jobs..
I think one of the things that really separates us from the high primates is that we’re tool builders. I read a study that measured the efficiency of locomotion for various species on the planet. The condor used the least energy to move a kilometer. And, humans came in with a rather unimpressive showing, about a third of the way down the list. It was not too proud a showing for the crown of creation. So, that didn’t look so good. But, then somebody at Scientific American had the insight to test the efficiency of locomotion for a man on a bicycle. And, a man on a bicycle, a human on a bicycle, blew the condor away, completely off the top of the charts.
And that’s what a computer is to me. What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with, and it’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.” ~ Steve Jobs
Does that not sound like a man on a mission?
Rather, Mr. Andreessen specifically selected that quote as an example of a "mission".
OK, so let's just say that was a bad example--and one that happened to undermine the very point he was trying to make.
On one hand, in the "Rich or King?" formulation, I want to get rich. I don't want to be running my company twenty years from now. I'll want to retire (hopefully a very wealthy man) and go do other things that interest me - because there are far, far more interesting things to do in the world than there is time to do them anyway. Getting rich is, among other things, a way of simplifying the process of doing all those things that are interesting but not financially self-sustaining.
On the other hand, I want to change this little corner of the world, where a bunch of professional nerds like me suffer seemingly endless frustration and grief trying to make the computer systems that we get paid to work on and occasionally love actually keep running. I hate system downtime, in part because I hate the kind of work involved in downtime - digging through different systems for clues, calling buddies on other teams for their clues, giving status reports on the status reports, and beating our collective heads against the wall trying to get the information required to actually do our jobs - that is, get the downed systems back up again.
I admit it, I like working on big enterprise systems. I like debugging them, and I like making them better. It may be Stockholm Syndrome at this point, but it's pretty fun sometimes. And I like my colleagues who work on them with me, the special balance of discipline and imagination it takes to do ops and development on really big systems. I want to make their lives better.
And then one day I had this idea, and saw how I could make life a little better for all of us, and save time, money, and credibility for our employers in the bargain. And if I can get rich along the way, all the better.
Is that a mission? Or just a mission statement? Does it matter?
If not, and you're not in financial hardship, start doing those things you love now.
Enjoy your life before responsibilities and old age catch upto you.
I have a working definition for "rich"... that is, have enough fungible wealth "in the bank" (low-risk investment) that you could live comfortably for the rest of your days, without ever again selling your time for money. By that definition, I'm not rich.
And frankly, middle-class life is a trap in that regard. You can be comfortable at the moment, and save money so you can be responsible for your own needs when you're too old and worn out to work anymore. That sucks. I've been on that treadmill a long time, and I'm getting the hell off it.
I already do things I love - but not as much as I want to, mostly because of the 40+ hours 50 weeks a year that a dayjob entails. I spend more time dayjobbing than anything I love, and I generally don't love the dayjob.
On the other hand, that makes me a lot more determined and thoughtful about my approach to a startup than a lot of the younger founders I've seen. I want to do this once. I don't want to have to do it again.
And a final thought on this... after a discussion many months ago with another entrepreneur (doing a medical device), I thought long and hard about my motivation. And here it is, in a nutshell... creating a company and a product that makes a real dent in how big enterprise software projects are done is the biggest thing I can realistically imagine myself doing. I'm aiming for the highest target that I believe I can hit. Getting rich is, frankly, just a side effect of that. And pride will carry me when love is no longer enough.
I think the mission to make a life a little better in a specific way is a true mission. Solving a frustration that you truly hate is a common factor in many successes.
That said, I also tend to see the most successful entrepreneurs much more concerned about the mission than retirement. Not sure if go on to other things meant Bill Gates style or tropical beach style. If you are truly mission oriented, then you would presumably care more about the mission than yourself. Retirement is an afterthought.
This past weekend, I gave up most of the time I'd normally spend working on my startup on something else instead - playing in two different bands in a jug band competition! We're talking about people who actively opposed to paying anybody anything for the work, who fight tooth and nail to win temporary possession of a freaking waffle iron! And I'd be really damned proud if one of my bands won that waffle iron, too - it's been a prize for over 30 years.
What did I get out of it? My closest musical partner and I put together something of a dream band of some of our musician friends, and we jammed out Stairway to Heaven in under five minutes in front of 300 people. Financially, that's worth less than nothing. Emotionally, I'll always remember that moment.
Playing good music is a mission for me. Supporting the musical community and cultural history of Minneapolis is a mission. But those aren't missions that pay my mortgage.
This is what squicks me out a little about all the people marketing themselves on the internet who claim to have a "passion" to do <something boring>. They might find the work interesting and rewarding, but passionate? It sounds dishonest and self-serving.
I'd like to build something that is valuable, something that lasts, something that is truly hard to build in a multi-year way. Is that a mission? Maybe. Is that a passion? NO. The desire to create something big and powerful, that's passion. But the thing I'm actually creating? That's the map, not the territory.
Which is why all HN job postings contain keywords like "change" and "disrupt."
Also, if you have a purely ideological mission with no plan to make money with it, you shouldn't be starting a business and getting investors. You should be starting a non profit and getting donors. The difference is, investors expect to be payed back.
Or you can have the best of both worlds: make the thing you are doing because you want change sustainable, so you dont have to beg to anybody and can just go on making it happen..
I think is that what he was talking about.. you try to make a dream come true.. than make it sustainable somehow.. becoming rich? maybe.. but thats not the primary goal.
I think it has a lot to do with the personality.. Machiavel already stated that if a king need troops, its better to hire mercenaries only as a last case.. soldiers that fight for ideals are much more powerful.. i've read that when i was a teenager and never forget of that part..
So the ideological fellow is unbeatable, because passion is the most powerful human fuel ever "invented" :)
I've seen a lot of founders actually start off this way, they come up with a mission post product. The best are actually capable of being delusional enough to believe this mission over time.
a16z wants to help people (who are predominantly using software and engineering) change the world. They plan to do this through VC investments, high caliber recruiting, etc. and will happen to become wealthy along the way.