#company culture

#company culture

In his reflections on the 2025 Wall Street Journal CEO Council summit held in December, WSJ Leadership Institute president Alan Murray noted that CEOs are not actually preoccupied with AI, tariffs, or geopolitics. Instead, they're focused on something far more fundamental: people and culture. How do you build an organization that can adapt, collaborate, and innovate amid persistent volatility? That instinct is correct. Yet one of the most effective tools for strengthening culture and developing talent remains surprisingly underused-skills-based volunteering (SBV).

The company that pioneered small launch has had a big year. Rocket Lab broke its annual launch record with the Electron booster-17 successful missions this year, and counting-and is close to bringing its much larger Neutron rocket to the launch pad. The company also expanded its in-space business, including playing a key role in supporting the landing of Firefly's Blue Ghost mission on the Moon and building two small satellites just launched to Mars.

"I try to instill this into the rest of the team, but certainly I feel that what we have right now is just a giant piece of shit," he told the MIT Technology Review in 2014. "Like, it's just terrible, and we should be humiliated that we offer this to the public. Not everyone finds that motivational, though."

"That cartoon is a great example of someone else defining what became the cultural narrative more so than reality," Nadella told Stripe cofounder John Collison.

We initially started remote. My cofounder is based in the UK and is planning on relocating to New York. We have a sales guy in France, and we have someone running customer success in Illinois. Our goal has always been: How do we actually get people in the same office? You just work faster. I'm getting absolutely roasted by most of the remote tech worker community for my post in favor of the office.

Before committing to working at his Greenville, North Carolina production studio, MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, starts some workers on roughly three-month contracts. During that trial period, internally called a vibe check, the company gives staffers an apartment and a rental car so they can focus on work without worrying about relocation. The objective is to "ensure you don't uproot your entire life and move to Greenville, North Carolina, and not work out," a former MrBeast staffer said.

At AskNicely, we're on a mission to help service businesses grow by empowering teams to deliver consistently amazing customer experiences. Our platform makes it simple to collect real-time customer feedback and turn insights into everyday action, powering over 1,300 companies worldwide. Our culture is guided by three non-negotiables we call "living in the purple": Play to Win: We bring our best, collaborate closely, and move fast - progress over perfection. Love Your Feedback: We model curiosity and openness so we can keep learning and improving.

The video game industry has been a tumultuous place of late, with mass layoffs, game cancellations, and studio closures, not to mention ongoing fears about the role of artificial intelligence. These issues have affected developers big and small. One smaller developer that has endured and thrived is Supergiant, which just launched Hades 2 this week. Supergiant was formed in 2009 with seven people and has grown to 25 today.

Palmer Luckey says he learned the hard way that relying on Silicon Valley talent can be a trap. The founder of Oculus VR and Anduril Industries recalled how, after Facebook (now Meta) acquired Oculus in 2014, his other company's hiring funnel narrowed almost exclusively to Bay Area engineers. Many, he said, were "very mercenary-minded" and more interested in résumé building than mission.

Corporate events should focus on connection and fun, appealing to a diverse range of interests. With creativity, they can energize and inspire employees. Giving employees to showcase their inner capabilities easily. Such events are also crucial in reducing stress among employees. Here are 20 ideas for corporate events that can boost; Team morale, Inspire creativity, and Strengthen your business culture.

Listeners and readers of "Ecommerce Conversations" know I occasionally depart from interviews to share my experiences owning and operating Beardbrand, the direct-to-consumer brand I launched a decade ago. To date, I've addressed hiring, branding, profit-building, priority-setting, exiting, overcoming setbacks, and top business models. This too is a solo episode, addressing entrepreneurial doldrums, when a business is seemingly stuck in no growth or worse. Certainly that's the story of Beardbrand over the past couple of years.

We're on a mission to make evidence-based autism care accessible to families everywhere. 🌍 Families shouldn't have to uproot their lives to access support-that's why we break down barriers while keeping the human touch at the center of our work. Our goal? To positively impact the lives of 1 million children with autism. Rooted in a culture that values trust, collaboration, and balance, we foster a workplace where everyone feels valued and empowered.

The HR department pressured me to sign a paper acknowledging responsibility for an incident with no prior knowledge of what had occurred or who complained.

You have to be willing to do yourself, to an even higher degree, what you ask of everyone else.

"I've talked to plenty of people who got these offers at Anthropic and who just turned them down. Who wouldn't even talk to Mark Zuckerberg."

None of this (Trump Media deal, subtle DEI rollbacks, etc.) was ever openly addressed. Since the firm advertises its commitment to socially progressive causes, I thought this was a tension that warranted conversation.

Refreshing a mission or strategy feels productive. It gives leadership the impression of progress without demanding real disruption. Revising words is easier than confronting entrenched behaviors, broken incentives or outdated processes.

"I've always been able to find interesting pieces in everybody I meet and things to connect with... There's connections with everybody. And so I think what I've learned in my personal life and at work is finding that common ground with people."

Customer service is not just a department. It consists of unscripted moments and acts of ownership that build trust and loyalty, belonging to everyone in a company.

The company was a little over 1,000 people. One year later, it is over 3,000 and I was in the top 30% by tenure.

"If you live 30 minutes away from the office, that's an hour a day that you could be working," says Jimenez, who also lives within a short walk to the office.

"We just killed unlimited PTO at Bolt," its founder and CEO, Ryan Breslow has just revealed on LinkedIn. "It sounds progressive, but it's totally broken. When time off is undefined, the good ones don't take PTO. The bad ones take too much."

Amazon is integrating its Leadership Principles into employee evaluations, marking the first time these principles will officially influence performance reviews. This shift aims to reinforce company culture and performance expectations.

And when your tools aren't talking, your team probably isn't either.