Forgive me, tarr11, but how do you know that culture was added later?

tarr11 · on Oct 12, 2012

"There were, so far, no agreements of any kind regarding how things would proceed. Just two guys that decided to hack together on something that sounded cool."

Here's the story of how it got founded:

http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/10/18/how-i-turned-down-3...

It'd be hard to argue that the first few months of hacking was "culture".

jt2190 · on Oct 13, 2012

Thanks for the link to Tom Preston-Werner's blog post about the founding of GitHub, it's a very good read.

He has another blog post, "Ten Lessons from GitHub’s First Year" [1]. Two of the ten points suggest that culture was important even in those early days:

  > Have Fun... Fostering a playful and creative environment 
  > is critical to maintaining both your personal health, 
  > and the health (and idea output) of the company.
  >
  > Trust your Team... In a startup, you can drastically reduce 
  > momentum by applying micromanagement, or you can boost
  > momentum by giving trust.

Although I agree completely with your point that "[i]t'd be hard to argue that the first few months of hacking was 'culture'"... It sure doesn't feel like they had to put a conscious effort into building a culture at this early stage, rather that their culture was already embodied in their personal beliefs, and the company now reflects those beliefs.

[1] http://tom.preston-werner.com/2011/03/29/ten-lessons-from-gi...

dasil003 · on Oct 13, 2012

Culture is not a secret sauce added by management after the company is established. It starts with the personality and practices of the founders and then evolves and solidifies over time as the company grows. Nothing could be more relevant to the culture than those first few months as they planted the seed that grew into what we see today.