You believe that a whole new approach to running companies has emerged in recent years. Please describe it.
Think about a start-up, but at scale. An archetypal tech start-up is an egalitarian band of people on a mission. It’s not terribly hierarchical — people do whatever needs to be done, but they’re all pointed in the same direction. They keep iterating and trying things out to ensure they have the right product-market fit.
This has always been the typical ‘Silicon Valley way,’ and until recently, the rest of the business world has been saying, ‘That’s fine for tech start-ups, but it wouldn’t work in our industry, or at scale.’ They think this approach is too chaotic and that you have to plan every move really carefully. But what I refer to as ‘the Geek Way’ says to the business world, ‘Actually, our basic vibe and culture is widely applicable and it does scale.’ Now, it doesn’t scale perfectly. You might have to tolerate
