What You Do Is Who You Are Book Summary - What You Do Is Who You Are Book explained in key points
Listen to the Intro
00:00

What You Do Is Who You Are summary

Ben Horowitz

How to Create Your Business Culture

4.2 (122 ratings)
24 mins
Table of Contents

    What You Do Is Who You Are
    Summary of 8 key ideas

    Audio & text in the Blinkist app
    Key idea 1 of 8

    Culture is crucial – and it's unique to each successful company.

    It’s common for business leaders to say that culture is key to a company’s success. But ask for more detail, and the response is often vague. What exactly is culture, and why is it so important?

    Let’s start with what it’s not. Culture isn’t the same as values – values are more like aspirations, while culture has to mean something in practice. Culture isn’t the personality of the CEO, either: that can only ever be one part of it.

    What’s more, culture varies hugely from one company to the next. Compare Apple and Amazon: the former places such an emphasis on quality that it spent $5 billion dollars on a beautiful new headquarters. Amazon, meanwhile, is famously thrifty – an expense like that would be unthinkable on the Amazon campus.

    What culture should be is an expression of the business itself. Bob Noyce, who co-founded Intel in 1968, provides a great example. He found that the developing field of technology, in which it was the engineers who were really driving things forward, needed a new sort of workplace environment. So, he created a radically different business culture that profoundly influenced the development of Silicon Valley. His egalitarian system had no vice presidents; he gave most of his workers stock options; and he sat everyone in a single large room, rather than in separate offices. He also made people go to sessions on what was known as “the Intel Culture.” All of this created a culture in which ideas could flourish – exactly what this innovative company needed.

    A great workplace culture won’t magically transform your company into Intel. And a bad culture isn’t automatically a recipe for disaster. Think of a hugely talented athlete with a bad training regime: it’s still possible that they’ll succeed based on talent alone. A better diet and training schedule, though, will still help them to maximize their potential – which is also what culture can do for your business.

    In these blinks, a diverse range of examples from both business and the wider world – stretching all the way back to Genghis Khan – will demonstrate the many ways in which culture contributes to success, and give you some advice on defining your business’s culture for yourself. Because culture isn’t something that can be generalized; it has to be your own.

    Want to see all full key ideas from What You Do Is Who You Are?

    Key ideas in What You Do Is Who You Are

    More knowledge in less time
    Read or listen
    Read or listen
    Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
    Find your next read
    Find your next read
    Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
    Shortcasts
    Shortcasts New
    We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.

    What is What You Do Is Who You Are about?

    In What You Do Is Who You Are (2019), venture capitalist and management expert Ben Horowitz offers his own definition of business culture. Through contemporary examples and some historical detours past such notables as Genghis Khan and the samurai, he offers fascinating advice on how to create a culture that’s best suited to your business.

    Who should read What You Do Is Who You Are?

    • CEOs and company founders
    • Aspiring entrepreneurs
    • Aspiring leaders looking to create an ideal workplace culture

    About the Author

    Ben Horowitz is a venture capitalist, management expert, and New York Times best-selling author of The Hard Thing About Hard Things. He is a co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and former president and CEO of the software company Opsware, which was bought by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007.

    Categories with What You Do Is Who You Are

    Books like What You Do Is Who You Are

    People ❤️ Blinkist
    Sven O.

    It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.

    Thi Viet Quynh N.

    Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.

    Jonathan A.

    Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.

    Renee D.

    Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.

    People also liked

    Start growing with Blinkist now
    27 Million
    Downloads on all platforms
    4.7 Stars
    Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
    91%
    Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
    *Based on survey data from Blinkist customers
    Powerful ideas from top nonfiction

    Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 7,000+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.

    Start your free trial