
How Dave Goldberg Built a Billion-Dollar Business and Still Gets Home By 5:30 PM - bberson
http://firstround.com/article/How-Dave-Goldberg-of-SurveyMonkey-Built-a-Billion-Dollar-Business-and-Still-Gets-Home-By-5-30
======
hkmurakami
_> Corporate culture isn’t your company’s ping-pong table. It’s not your
catered lunch. It’s not the posters you tape onto the office walls. A real
culture is the cumulative effect of productive relationships among employees.
Those relationships can take years to develop. And they don’t always work
out._

Probably the best statement on culture I've read recently.

~~~
cuppy
I actually wonder if this means that SF-based startups (or those who are
blindly following this 'culture hacks' mentality) are actually worse places to
work overall? I wonder if focusing on the quick fixes like free lunch, company
trips & ping pong tables ends up outweighing REAL company culture in terms of
ROI.

~~~
encoderer
Have you worked at many non-sf-startup companies? Just because you don't have
foosball and catered lunch doesn't mean you're doing squat to build a
"culture."

~~~
jmspring
There are a number of people out there who have a very rigid view of what
"startup culture" means. I've seen it in first time as well as repeat
entrepreneurs. Often they thing hard work, spending free time together, need
the perks, everyone will always have the same rah-rah approach.

People have lives, hobbies, different interests. The best companies are those
that have a management team that embrace peoples differences, nurture where
needed, give space where appropriate, and cultivate a culture where people
feel like they are contributing in the way they best can and allowing them
paths to grow.

------
jcampbell1
The company was "built" by Ryan Finley, and completely profitable before Dave
Goldberg even heard of the company. Survey Monkey was 10 years old before Dave
Goldberg was even hired.

Let's not rewrite history here. Sheryl Sandberg and Dave Goldberg both go home
at 5:30, but neither are even close to founders.

I don't mean to diminish their accomplishments, but "built a billion dollar
business" is misleading.

~~~
suyash
agree, is Survey Monkey really a worth a billion plus dollars?

~~~
jcampbell1
Yes, it is. They do $100M in revenue, and it all pretty much flows to the
bottom line. They have less than 200 employees and no matter what you assume
for compensation, they are tremendously profitable.

~~~
joering2
To me, its an astonishing achievement. People, we are talking here about a
simple two-pages PHP script that stores information from users input into
database. Something a junior programmer can knock off in less than 4 hours,
easily. Why on earth somebody, anybody, would paid monthly a hard dollar for
that, no idea! Their exec team should go sell sand on African deserts; they
would came back trilionaires.

~~~
nacs
I've never used Surveymonkey nor do I have any affiliation with them but this
is such a crass and insulting comment.

Pretty much every web app is a "take input and stick it into a database".

Could a rough prototype of a survey system be made in 4 hours? Possibly, but
to state that the entire app could be built in 4 hours by a "junior
programmer" and claim their executive team is selling BS is offensive and
asinine.

------
alberth
>"How Dave Goldberg Built a Billion-Dollar Business and Still Gets Home By
5:30 PM"

The title is completely misleading.

A. It implies that Dave Goldberg is a founder of SurveyMonkey and built the
company from the ground up. He didn't.

To quote the company website [1]:

    
    
        In 2009, an investor group led by Spectrum Equity
        Investors acquired the Company and appointed Dave
        Goldberg CEO. 
    

B. Furthermore, SurveyMonkey has been around since 1999 [2] when Goldberg has
only joined in the last few recent years.

C. Lastly, SurveyMonkey is not a "Billian-Dollar" business, as the video
states in OP link, they did $113M last year in revenue (which is greatly
respectable) but a far cry from $1B.

[1] [http://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/aboutus/press/surveymonkey-
ra...](http://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/aboutus/press/surveymonkey-
raises-800-million/) [2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SurveyMonkey>

~~~
tptacek
SurveyMonkey has a $1Bn+ valuation. It's not the case that every description
of a company as an "X billion dollar business" is referring to top-line
revenue. To see why, just observe that no company with a working business
model is ever sold for 1x forward revenue.

It's also worth noting that as fuzzy as valuation numbers often are,
SurveyMonkey is currently doing the "providing liquidity to equityholders
without doing an IPO" dance. They are well past the point where they could be
getting their valuation from a publicly traded market cap. They're very
probably worth what they say they are.

------
tptacek
You can go past getting your team home for dinner if you actively work on
having a family-friendly culture.

The best company culture I ever worked in was the early startup days at
EnterAct, the Chicago ISP I ran technical operations for. Instead of an
office, EnterAct bought a large apartment on the north side of Chicago (for a
time, one of the founders had a room in it, but it was mostly occupied by the
company). The founders were married and routinely (like, weekly) had
friends/family over for dinner.

If you have a reasonably small team (like virtually every startup does) and
you acknowledge that many on your team have families, you can put effort into
integrating families into the company. Create times when it makes sense to
have people's kids in the office. Make dinners. Take little trips. Pay for
real health insurance (I KID I KID).

How weird is it that it's less odd to see someone's dog next to their Ikea
desk than it is to see their 4 year old?

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> How weird is it that it's less odd to see someone's dog next to their Ikea
desk than it is to see their 4 year old?

I would find either of those things in a business odd. Maybe I don't
understand because I'm a young guy but I don't see how integrating your
employees family's into business life is helpful. I've never found the mixing
of business and personal relationships to have any positive effects.

Could you give a couple of examples of how a business which incorporates
employees family's is beneficial?

~~~
larrys
Older guy with children here. To me having a 4 year old, even well behaved, in
the office is disruptive - period. Maybe occasionally is fine and a treat for
everyone but I simply can't see how doing that on any regular basis makes any
sense at all. And no comparison to a pet who, while needing walking and might
bark occasionally, or get attention from co workers, can sit for hours and do
nothing and not make any demands. Not that I haven't seen children of the
owners of sushi or chinese restaurants sitting doing their homework while the
parents work.

~~~
tptacek
I think it's worth considering how the physical structure of the office and
how the structure of people's working time at the office makes children more
disruptive than pets.

I'm not a fan of dogs in the office during the day to begin with. Maybe it
doesn't make sense to have kids coming in after school, either. But if you're
regularly going to have people working into the evening out of a sense of
shared endeavor, integrating kids into that (maybe they can do their homework,
or play video games in the corner, or just eat a shared meal there) doesn't
seem crazy.

I concede that you have to plan this out in advance; you can't just take an
already-running open plan office in San Mateo and say "bring your 4 year old
to work any time" and have that work out.

~~~
trhtrsh
Do you have kids?

Having a 4-year-old in the office all day while people are working is
negligent child care, except in cases of temporary emergency.

Dogs can nap on the floor for 8 hours and be happy and not bother anyone.

~~~
tptacek
Allow me to blow your mind: I have both kids (plural) _and_ a dog (singular).
If the point you haphazardly tried to make here was "it's impossible to care
for a preschooler in a knowledge worker environment", I'm just going to say
you're wrong.

~~~
enraged_camel
Sorry man. I want to agree with you - I really do. But I cannot envision
myself both focusing on work and caring for a preschooler effectively. I might
be able to do one well, but the other will necessarily suffer. Humans cannot
multi-task, period, and research very clearly shows that switching tasks and
contexts on a regular basis hurts productivity significantly.

I think the idea of work-life separation exists for a reason. You cannot have
your cake and eat it too.

~~~
rdouble
I've worked in open-plan environments that made it a lot harder to focus than
when I had to babysit my niece. You just give the kid some crayons, an iPad of
Dora videos, and some fruit roll-ups and they are occupied for the afternoon.
In contrast, there is little one can do to make an office busybody leave you
alone, for even a couple hours.

~~~
girvo

        > You just give the kid some crayons, an iPad of Dora videos
        > and some fruit roll-ups and they are occupied for the afternoon.
    

Swap the Dora videos for Game of Thrones, and I'd be set for an afternoon
there, too.

------
larrys
The reason that Dave Goldberg can get home at 5:30pm is most likely because of
this which comes at the beginning:

"SurveyMonkey is an atypical technology company. They’ve been profitable from
almost day one."

If you've got a company that clicks from the beginning there are many things
that you can do that won't follow a typical path. Most companies aren't
profitable from day one. They need every advantage they can get. And you do
need to work long hours. (Noting where Mark Cuban didn't take a vacation for 7
years and guess what I didn't take one for about 6 years iirc.) This isn't to
say that you can't carve out time for family (you may be able to and it may
give you better results it's possibl) but the reason you are successful has to
do with many things that are beyond your control.

Goldberg could build Survey Monkey differently because he was on to something
that clicked and, apparently that was highly profitable as well. A rising tide
floats all boats.

~~~
tptacek
Yes, but some of that is also about how speculative your ambitions are. Lots
of small companies start with relatively conservative models that are designed
to "click" almost immediately. That's not a fashionable model among SOMA
startups, though.

Which is to say that there are some impediments to feeling much sympathy about
the unfairness of it all when people in the SOMA startup orbit talk about how
they don't have the luxury to get home for dinner with their kids, because
they're metaphorically trying to keep both feet on the gas pedal. Well, they
chose to do that; not only that, but statistically, they're probably going to
fail like the rest of new businesses. There's no valid imperative that demands
that they make that choice.

Mark Cuban's BROADCAST.COM seems like a great example of the "speculatively
ambitious" model.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
From context I can guess SOMA but what is it more precisely please?

~~~
tptacek
The South of Market area in San Francisco.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Oh ! I was thinking Sell Off, Merger, Acquisition or some other "up or out"
ancronym

Thanks

------
mikek
Not mentioned: Dave Goldberg's wife is Sheryrl Sandberg, who is also known for
being home by 5:30.

~~~
marcamillion
Wow...did not know that. That's awesome that they both seem to put family
first - in their professional lives.

What's interesting is that FB isn't listed as an investor in their $800M
round. I wonder if that would have been a conflict - I can imagine it musta
been.

But I wonder how awkward it was for Google to be an investor and not FB.

~~~
trhtrsh
Do they send all their employees home at 5:30?

Or are they hypocritical?

~~~
rhizome
I'm sure if their employees are told that if they work hard and do good work
that the possibility exists.

------
incision
Not sure how I feel about this.

> _"It becomes tougher when it’s necessary to fire someone who’s performed
> well at their job, but isn’t able to grow with the company. For a startup to
> scale to a successful larger company, the people need to scale, too."_

 _In some cases, such employees might not take seeing a senior employee hired
above them well. They might dislike being passed up for a promotion, but lack
the maturity to understand why._

Versus...

> _'The ancient Greek aphorism “Know thyself” remains good advice for CEOs.
> Every manager has weaknesses. Identify them, and hire people who can
> compensate for them.'_

Sounds like people who are admittedly good at their job could be fired for
taking issue with the hiring of a manager who they're expected to compensate
for.

Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I'm truly sick of the notion that
workers serve their manager, not the other way around.

~~~
sillysaurus
_Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but I'm truly sick of the notion that
workers serve their manager, not the other way around._

In the vast majority of companies in the US, workers generally serve the owner
of the business they work for, and the managers are expected to carry out the
will of the owner (directly or indirectly).

There are a few counterexamples proving that businesses don't have to follow
this model in order to scale, e.g. Valve. But Valve is (a) fanatical about
hiring, and (b) rolling in so much money that they won't have to make any
tough decisions in the near future, e.g. laying off part of the staff to keep
their company afloat (which can destroy the sort of culture necessary to
sustain the model you're describing).

In the US, the incentive structure for a modern business penalizes letting
average employees make major company decisions. One reason is because average
employees often lack the motivation to carry out their vision through
completion, or have unrealistic expectations. In other words, most mid-to-
large businesses are penalized for trusting employees to do things other than
what they're told to do (or received approval to do). It's hard to define that
as anything other than servitude.

One way around this state of affairs is to work for a startup. When a company
is small, such political scaffolding is unncessary.

~~~
schackbrian
> But Valve is (a) fanatical about hiring, and (b) rolling in so much money
> that they won't have to make any tough decisions in the near future, e.g.
> laying off part of the staff to keep their company afloat (which can destroy
> the sort of culture necessary to sustain the model you're describing).

Several out of work as Valve makes 'large decisions' about its future
(<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5215891>)

~~~
trhtrsh
Are you being satirical?

[https://www.google.com/search?q=valve+layoffs&](https://www.google.com/search?q=valve+layoffs&);

------
drumdance
What?! Dave Goldberg did not build SurveyMonkey. He bought it with help from a
VC fund. At that time it was grossing something like $28 million with $23
million in _profit_. They paid about 10x profits. It would take a monkey to
fuck that up.

------
rayiner
This quote is great: "There are the people who don’t have any experience but
are just really smart, talented, and motivated. When you get those people
right, they’re your ‘homegrown talent’, if you will. These people are your
farm team. These people are, for the most part, the best people who will stay
long term at your company. They’re the carriers of the culture. They grew up
there. You took a chance on them. They’ve learned how to be in the business."

~~~
larrys
"There are the people who don’t have any experience but are just really smart,
talented, and motivated"

Would like to point out that people like that work well in the current
environment with startups and the reward system (and age group as well). In
more traditional business, particularly small business, someone who is "smart,
talented, and motivated" tends to leave if not given an ownership opportunity
in the venture or a path upwards (which may not even exist.). In other words
in a traditional small wholesaler or even a small retail chain or manufacturer
it can actually be problematic to hire people who have those qualities if you
have no place to put them or aren't growing in a way that they can take
advantage. Actually better (from my experience) to go with the b players who
may be smart, have experience and have less motivation and ambitions.

------
DigitalSea
Maybe it's the inner cynic inside of me, but is it just me or does this
article only focus on the fact that CEO Dave Goldberg gets to go home at
5.30pm? This line here kind of gives me the impression that Dave gets to leave
at 5.30, but his employees don't: "creating a culture that enables the
company's CEO, Dave Goldberg, to leave the office by 5:30 PM" — unless my
reading has failed me here, not once does the article mention everyone gets to
go home on time.

What is this culture that Dave has created? Is it a culture of everyone else
does the work and Dave sits back, or is it a culture of everyone gets to go
home at 5.30 regardless of looming deadlines or workload? It's a lot easier to
go home at 5.30 when everyone else is doing the work.

------
tks2103
he gets home at 5:30 because he gets back online after 8:00

"Goldberg leaves work at 5:30 PM every day to spend time with his family.
While he does get back online after he puts his children to bed after 8:00 PM,
he sets an example that makes it easier for the company to build and maintain
its workforce."

~~~
hkmurakami
Even if he gets back online after 8:00, his leaving the office premises at
5:30 makes it much much easier for others in the company to leave around the
5:30 time frame as well.

If he didn't do this, many employees would implicitly feel compelled (even if
the CEO "says" that everyone should leave at 5:30) to stay much later than
8:00pm.

His behavior is definitely something we can learn from.

~~~
tks2103
the link title implies one can generate a company with a billion dollar
valuation while working an 8-9 hour day.

the content of the linked article contradicts that implication directly.

it's a misleading link. that is a bad thing.

~~~
hkmurakami
That's a good point. Fully agreed that the misdirection is in bad taste.

But I do contend that being able to work 4/12 hours at home versus all 12
hours at work is a substantial improvement for both yourself and for your
family (especially if you have young children).

~~~
bmj
_But I do contend that being able to work 4/12 hours at home versus all 12
hours at work is a substantial improvement for both yourself and for your
family (especially if you have young children)._

I agree. Completely. My employer gives me similar freedoms (assuming something
isn't actively melting down at 5:00 PM), and I can say that it has contributed
to the strength of my family and marriage.

Many nights I don't get back online at 9:00 PM, but knowing that I can be
productive _and_ be present for my family is an enormous perk.

------
larrys
I suspect that the slant to some of this could also be to make it seem that
this type of behavior is applauded and encouraged by First Round as a way to
get people to see First Round in a more friendly light.

Almost as if you were applying to a part of the armed forces and had heard
horror stories about what was required and then found out that "members of the
coast guard get generous leave time to spend with their families".

~~~
hkmurakami
First Round's page design and high quality / useful articles have definitely
made me think of it in a much more favorable light (e.g. the Stripe hiring
article) even beyond this most recent "friendly and reasonable culture"
article.

It's certainly an interesting positioning/differentiation move that they're
doing vs the standard "top VC" pack.

------
mech4bg
Having worked at a company where the culture changed over time to the point
where work began to completely drown out having a personal life, the attitude
at SurveyMonkey is incredibly refreshing.

There's a lot to be said for a great work ethic and productive work culture,
but it doesn't have to come at the expense of having a home life. I like that
Dave Goldberg mentions family obligations - at my previous job I would
basically not have seen my daughter during the week. That is no way to live.

~~~
hkmurakami
IMO Culture starts at the top. What was the CEO like at said former employer
of yours? Did he lead the charge in assuming a more Spartan work schedule?

~~~
mech4bg
Anyone from middle-management up escaped the changes, which didn't help
morale.

~~~
hkmurakami
Seems like the middle-managers were where the chian really broke and things
were allowed to spiral out of control, and on conjunction, the top brass
didn't step in to revert things to sanity. :(

------
jxf
OK, but what time do his employees leave?

~~~
hkmurakami
Hopefully around the same time, but in any case having the guy at the top
leave at 5:30 makes it _much_ easier for the rest of the company to leave at a
reasonable time (or even earlier than him)

Addendum: In Japanese corporate culture, subordinates can't leave before their
bosses (this is the unwritten rule, which I broke all the time, but that's
another story). Exacerbating this is the fact that many managers have strained
home lives and don't want to go home early in the first place. But the few
enlightened managers make it a point to leave early, because they know that
unless _they_ leave early, none of their team members can!

~~~
philwelch
I remember reading somewhere about a Japanese CEO who worked from 11-2. You
have to be in before your boss and out after him, so add on a few levels of
management and this is what he has to do just so the workers can have decent
hours at all.

------
CurtMonash
Nitpick: The article both says he leaves work by 5:30 and he gets home by
5:30.

Short commute. :)

~~~
efa
Yeah, noticed that. Title and 2 sentences into the intro!

------
codegeek
_“Bad Attitude” + “Good Work” = “You’re Fired._

well said.

~~~
suyash
hardly true in my experience

~~~
chengiz
That's because it is a pipe dream for many (most?) companies, there's just not
enough talent. And "good attitude + bad work" is the far shorter end of the
stick. And isnt it part of a manager's job to handle the "bad attitude + good
work" employee?

------
gadders
Sorry, but leaving at 5.30pm and then logging in again that night doesn't
count.

------
andrew26_2
"...scaling a company requires steadily increasing productivity, quarter by
quarter and year by year."

I really admire this long term thinking. I am transitioning off of a project
that for 5 years tried to 'make it big' as soon as possible never taking the
time to think about continually getting better.

Five years later we have created a lot of code but our process and culture
have gone now where.

------
joshrotenberg
_... Gets Home By 5:30 PM_... leave the office by 5:30 PM

Which is it? Or does he live next door to his office?

------
mhartl
When does he get started in the morning?

------
anon808
billion dollars in what?

~~~
kapilkale
Valuation.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2013/01/17/surveymonk...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2013/01/17/surveymonkey-
to-raise-794m-in-recap-valuation-1-35-billion/)

~~~
anon808
oh, then it must be real. kind of like kevin rose 'making' $60MM in 18 months.

[http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2006-08-13/cover-
image-h...](http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2006-08-13/cover-image-how-
this-kid-made-60-million-in-18-months)

unreal, do people still fall for this bullshit?

~~~
hkmurakami
They apparently have over $100MM in revenue/year, so a $1BB valuation doesn't
seem unreasonable.

------
breakupapp
nice post

