A Controversial Take on Culture - Ali Ghodsi (Databricks)

Ali Ghodsi discusses his controversial opinion that a company's culture is initially the personality of its CEO, extending recursively to department leaders. He illustrates this with examples like Microsoft under different CEOs and Amazon's leadership principles, which he believes codified Jeff Bezos's personality. Ghodsi advocates for formalizing these personality traits into culture principles, serving as a "cheat sheet" for employees to succeed. He emphasizes that these principles must reflect the CEO's true self to avoid misleading employees and suggests that companies should promote, hire, and manage people based on adherence to these codified values. He clarifies that while diversity in skills is important, core values should be consistent across the organization, citing Databricks' culture, which stems from its founders' research background and values like working from first principles, raising the bar in hiring, and truth-seeking.