Building Institutions

A startup is an experiment; an institution is a promise. The difference is not size or age; it is whether the thing can continue without the person who began it. That requires unglamorous work: writing down how decisions are actually made, building systems that do not rely on one person remembering, hiring people who are allowed to be better than you at their part, and treating culture as something maintained rather than announced. Succession is the honest test. If the founder leaving would break the company, then the company is really a very elaborate description of one person's schedule. I take that seriously because of what our businesses touch: a student's year, a family's home, someone's holiday. Those obligations should not expire with my attention span. Legacy is a heavy word and I use it carefully; what I mean by it is ordinary and specific. Build the thing well enough, and staff it honestly enough, that it is still keeping its promises long after nobody remembers who made them.