What does Hubspot do? I haven’t looked into it in depth but I know it’s a $14b company based out on Cambridge, MA. I also know they are a CRM company…at least that’s the product I’ve used them for.

They say: "We are on a mission to transform marketing.”

If one asks why I used Hubspot over Salesforce it’s because Hubspot was free and it let me set up meetings in my calendar for podcasts. I had heard rumblings that they gave quite a bit of shit about their culture too.

But I didn’t look into it any deeper. Laziness really. It’s probably second to envy in the worst sins.

However, I decided to read through the 153 slides that defined Hubspot’s culture code. A part of me is mad that I didn’t pull the trigger to invest in a company that invested in its people when I learned about them a few years ago because that would’ve been a 300%+ investment now.

But then again, my investment journey has been filled with ‘ones that got away’…..still an amateur that’s learning.

I want to find any semblance of ’substance’ when I read these. Probably because I’m tired of bullshit values and mission statements. Who isn’t tired of those?

So it’s looking for what’s different. Kind of a “Where’s Waldo.”

On the element of “Autonomy”…something I consider to be as basic as vacation in a company (if it wants to succeed)…. is Hubspot’s use of a "3-word policy.”

"Use good judgment.”

This applies to everything from vacation, business expense, where you work, etc….It just doesn’t get simpler than this. Just smackdown common sense. It reminds me of SEMCO. Ricardo Semler wrote how people could choose where to lodge and whether they wanted to get a company car and for them to decide what to expense at SEMCO. Why? Because you hire fucking adults.

It’s like when I worked at my last media startup job and it was a company policy that I had to take a vacation day if I was away from the keyboard for more than 4 hours.

<stopped typing for a whole 60 seconds to calm down from the rage>

I also like Hubspot’s selectivity on hiring. They say no to hiring good people who want predictability and stability…instead hiring those with heart (humble, effective, adaptable, remarkable, and transparent).

It’s important to know what you want to weed out for. Frankly, I think any company that wants to succeed will need to hire those who don’t dream for predictability and stability….for that’s an illusion.

Just like Santa Claus isn’t real, so is predictability at a job…..for the only constant is change.

They also speak about having transparency in all meetings and showing financials, KPIs, etc… I think all companies should do this…why they don’t is beyond me.

A focus on ‘individual mastery’. I love them for this. A company is built bottom-up and it’s nice to see a company point this out as a focus.

A free meals program if you take someone smart out to dinner. Expensed. That’s just so smart! It’s not just a cafeteria but free food IF you take an opportunity to learn. What a great incentive! And sure you might think “oh won’t people abuse it with friends?” well….back to “Use Good Judgment”….the world won’t move forward with cynics and pessimists making decisions.

They also have a neat way of determining the FMV of an employee for compensation. They use VORP => value over replacement players. Seems fair.

They also speak about the importance of “refactoring" => “to improve internal structure without changing external behaviour.” To Hubspot, this includes things like removing unnecessary rules, stop useless reports, cancel unproductive meetings, pruning processes, and moving everyone’s seat around every three months.

Hubspot also has an interesting description for building an honest organization. It includes having no "silent disagreements”. This sounds so wonderful. It also takes a belief that the candor will be used responsibly. A failure to believe that creates a doomed organization from the start.

"If we disagree with a decision or direction, we have the responsibility to speak up.”…hence they don’t do annual reviews with frequent feedbacks sputtered throughout. Because we grow via iteration and that shouldn’t be something that’s scheduled for once a year.

On making decisions: "An imperfect decision is better than no decision. A controversial decision is better than no decision”

And I’ll finish off with what is probably one of the most important beliefs a company needs to have "WE BELIEVE IN WORK+LIFE, NOT WORK VS. LIFE.”

Just an awesome culture code document…maybe this’ll lead to reading a few others like Blizzard, Valve, etc…