Drew, fwiw, pointed out that Avery Pennarun (who is, frankly, phenomenal at distilling ideas in a given context) was right about a bunch of things except the TLDR.
Though Avery does hint that "output" itself is a function of values/principles execs ought to imbibe in their org:
> What executives need to do is come up with organizational values that indirectly result in the strategy they want.
> That is, if your company makes widgets and one of your values is customer satisfaction, you will probably end up with better widgets of the right sort for your existing customers. If one of your values is to be environmentally friendly, your widget factories will probably pollute less but cost more. If one of your values is to make the tools that run faster and smoother, your employees will probably make less bloatware and you'll probably hire different employees than if your values are to scale fast and capture the most customers in the shortest time.
It remains to be seen if Avery ends up building a larger company than Drew. I'm willing to bet all of $100 in my depleting bank account that they will.
Drew Houston disagrees with you and Avery. Not just the TL;DR but in the critical details.
> Contrary to what the post suggests, HOM does not say not that the job of an executive is to wave some kind of magic culture or "values" wand and rubber-stamp whatever emergent strategy and behavior results from that. CEOs and executives absolutely do (and must) make important decisions of all kinds, break ties, and set general direction.
Notwithstanding that Drew is a billionaire who founded a billion dollar company and Tailscale has yet to crack a large valuation, Avery basically misinterpreted Andy Groves. That misinterpretation, "CEO as a passive referee whose job is to set the culture", is only sensible to people who've never managed a large group of people.
