A recent issue of the Wall Street Journal has a wonderful article comparing to two different corporate cultures being nurtured by two different Internet companies - Facebook and Zappos. Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg says his company is nurturing a culture designed to attract entrepreneurs, even though he knows that many of these creative people will leave the firm later. Zappos' CEO Tony Hsieh says his firm wants a culture of committed, engaged employees - people who buy into Zappos' mission and plan to stay.
Facebook's vision of itself is that of a technology company, while Zappos thinks of itself more in terms of ultra-good customer service.
Success for either firm, of course, could mean entirely different things. But there are a lot of recent books and studies on the impact of corporate culture on an organization's success, and one thing they all agree on is that when a firm's employees share a strongly held set of values and beliefs, long-term success is more likely. You don't have to read any further than Built to Last, or Firms of Endearment, to get this very clear message. So it's refreshing to see two such interesting and newsworthy firms thinking so clearly about their corporate cultures.
While Facebook is undoubtedly a highly successful technology firm, and clearly dwarfs Zappos in size and scope at this point in time, my own bet is that Zappos is more likely to be around in some form or other fifty years from now.