Focus on Your Mission

Answer me a quick question: are you really building a company that’s focused on a single mission?

Are you sure?

I ask because, if you spent any time on X this week, you probably saw the discussion about Google’s new AI model Gemini and its awkward… problem.

A picture tells the story:

There are countless examples of similar images.

Regardless of your personal views on the ideology of some of the people who built Gemini, it’s clear that it had a negative impact on the product.

On the other hand, Brian Armstrong famously stated that Coinbase is “a mission focused company” and that personal politics had no place at the company. This triggered legacy media but was genuinely controversial in Silicon Valley in 2020 after a decade+ of increasing ERG-led activism within big tech companies.

You didn’t ask for this, but its uniquely the founder’s job to decide what kind of company they are building, a mission focused one or one that gets involved in social causes.

This week I’m sharing:

• Why founders need to make this decision explicitly

• 6 reasons being focused on a narrow mission is an advantage

• How to keep your team focused on your mission

Focus on Your Mission

Founders Need to Decide

When every one of today’s massive tech companies was founded, or soon after, they created a mission statement. Google’s was “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Would you honestly say this is what Google is focused on today?

With 156,000 employees I find it hard to believe that each or even a majority of them cares deeply enough about that mission to make it their number one priority at work.

Many are focused on their own career growth, and others are focused on using Google’s resources to build support for the social causes they care about.

Sergey & Larry never explicitly made a promise like Brian Armstrong and, as a direct result the company has lost focus and even fired employees for calling it out.

The world is highly and increasingly polarized along ideological lines and just having a mission statement is no longer enough to ensure your team will be focused on the mission first and foremost.

You need to decide, will you wait for employees to ask for your views on various issues unrelated to your business, or will you be explicitly mission focused from the start and attract others who are as well?

Why Being Mission Focused is an Advantage

Reduced Internal Conflict

Not everyone is going to agree with each other about social causes or politics or what’s wrong with the world, even if everyone is informed about an issue, and chances are they’re not going to suddenly agree or change their opinions by talking about it at work and even if they do agree about the problem, they may not agree on how to solve it.

Your team should be focused on your startup’s mission and goals.

By creating an environment where they can focus on those, you’ll reduce conflicts between them and likely keep morale and camaraderie higher.

Efficient Resource Allocation

The most obvious reason is that startups have incredibly limited time and capital. The urgency to discover how to allocate that towards building a successful business is incredibly high.

Spending that mental energy or actual capital towards things other than accomplishing your startup’s mission only decrease your chances of achieving it.

Clarity of United Purpose

Startups are hard enough without team members rowing the boat in different directions, and a 1% difference initially can become much larger after months spent focused on slightly different things.

The closer everyone on the team is to having the same focus, the more trust they’ll have for each other. This will let you move faster rather than needing to implement consensus-based decision making.

Attract Top Employees

Most of the best builders just want to build in an environment that values building. I’ve found this to be nearly universally true in my career.

The employees who are most interested in bringing social causes into the workplace are just distracting your best people and are probably a net negative for the company.

Increased Customer Trust

By making your marketing and brand all about the product, customers know you won’t try to impart your views onto them. This is the opposite of what’s happening with Gemini right now, and their users are laughing at them.

Ironically, You’ll Achieve More Good

By being more focused you’ll create more economic value in the world that will, in turn, create more opportunity and help raise civilization up.

How to Stay Focused

So how do you keep your team focused on your mission? It’s not that complicated, actually.

Have a Policy

In the early days this can be as simple as a Notion doc that outlines what you expect of them. You can frame this as a code of conduct, company charter, or something else.

The important thing is that it’s clear and in writing somewhere that’s easy to find (and that new hires receive) that states your startup is apolitical.

Here’s Brian’s from Coinbase:

Lead by Example

Your team will follow your lead. If you’re working hard, chances are they will too. If you’re logged off by 4pm on Fridays, they’ll be out at 3:30.

The same principle applies here.

If 100% of your conversations with team members are focused on your mission, they’ll know you’re serious about your policy.

Critically, don’t shy away from this outside the company. If you’re asked in an interview, or even if you want to proactively publish it on your site or social media like Brian did. These are probably overkill for an early stage startup but may become relevant as you grow.

Filter Out Candidates

Hire people who communicate that they care about your mission, and that’s their priority. If you get a sense that they have other things they want to do at your company besides work on the mission, they may not be a fit for the company, and that’s ok!

Aside from seeing their enthusiasm when you ask them why they care about your mission, I would also ask them what they think of something like what Brian has done at Coinbase. It’s a completely reasonable question that may catch them a bit off-guard, especially if they’re not yet sure how you feel about it.

At the same time, I’d make sure to have your stance on this as a cultural value on your careers page and job reqs.

Clearly Say No

If a situation comes up where employees aren’t abiding by your policy, shut it down quickly and be honest and clear with them about why you’re doing this, despite the fact they might get upset or even angry with you.

You can and in many cases should also address it at a team meeting as well, but be careful to not shame the employee(s) who were involved publicly. That will build true resentment that you may not be able to recover from in their eyes.