
On a Mission - doh
http://a16z.com/2014/02/11/on-a-mission/
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johnrob
Should the mission slide go before or after the up-and-to-the-right graph? :)

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).

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unclebucknasty
I'm not buying this.

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!

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earbitscom
It takes money to build things at scale. Our company has an awesome mission to
empower artists by providing them with high quality exposure. Nobody is
donating millions of dollars for us to do this out of the kindness of their
hearts and their charity should go to starving people. That doesn't mean what
we do isn't important or meaningful. In the absence of a truly charitable
cause, the only way to provide this solution is by bringing in revenue and
there is nothing wrong with charging for a service that provides value. Marc
is saying that they look for founders doing things they find meaning in
because you build something bigger when you do it for a purpose beyond money.
That doesn't mean it doesn't take earning money to fulfill the mission.

~~~
unclebucknasty
I don't mean that there's something wrong with making money. I am not even
saying that there's something wrong with making money purely for the sake of
making money. I also don't suggest that seeking-profit means that a company
has no mission.

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.

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data_app
"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."

Those VCs are not AZ16 + those startups are not the future facebooks or
googles of the world.

~~~
unclebucknasty
> _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.

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beat
I don't know if I have a mission or not.

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?

~~~
mchusma
Hmmm...I see signals of both in what you say:

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.

~~~
beat
This gets back to the problem that the "mission" when we talk about software
startups generally involves making a lot of money as well. If you want a
software mission without promise of wealth for the work, you do open source (I
actually briefly considered open sourcing this project, and I wouldn't say it
is absolutely ruled out. But that's a one-way hash function, so there's no
need to commit now).

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.

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normloman
"The Machiavellian view on this is if you are the founder you actually want to
pretend you have a huge ideological mission, even if you don’t. And I guess
you would rather do that, than not have one, but clearly it helps enormously
to have a real mission."

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.

~~~
oscargrouch
>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" :)

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CapitalistCartr
He is making the mistake of looking at the successes without knowing the
failed companies' strategies. The successes may have this in common, but so
may the failures.

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thisisrobv
The irony of, "[t]he Machiavellian view on this is if you are the founder you
actually want to pretend you have a huge ideological mission, even if you
don’t."

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.

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gatehouse
AFAIK, Zuckerberg, and Page and Brin, STILL have voting control of their
companies, all the way from day 0 to IPO. So not just "I want the world's
information to be indexed", but " _I_ want to index the world's information".
etc.

~~~
jonathanjaeger
Or they think they're the best people equipped to do that and they don't want
to give up control and have the mission lose out (perfectly understandable).
It's not purely self-interested.

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jkw
Small note: I think what Steve Jobs said was "make a dent in the universe",
not "make a ding in the universe"

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nswanberg
From a time when one had to read the back of the software box to check for
Windows or MacOS compatibility: "Mosaic Communications Corporation intends to
be the premier provider of open software that enables people and companies to
exchange information and conduct commerce over the Internet and other global
networks."

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thrush
This resonates well with a16z is doing (imagine they were a startup, and they
were investing in themselves).

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.

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data_app
I think many people on this thread don't understand the importance of
"mission". Mission plays a big role in hiring the best talent - without a
mission, you are like a rudderless ship. You may make money in the short-term
but you are not building a great company for the future.

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iandanforth
I am building robots to create strong AI. I've tried to think of something
more important and impactful than strong AI, but that's it. It's why I'm here.
How about you?

~~~
bglazer
That sounds wonderfully interesting. Care to be a bit more specific?

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babesh
Then why did they invest in Zynga multiple times?

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choppa
why is this on hacker news? this is just an advertisement, e.g. to speculators

