Google's culture is not the result of size. It is the result of the fact that absent specific and top-down reinforcement, culture will devolve. When a company a

Google's culture is not the result of size. It is the result of the fact that absent specific and top-down reinforcement, culture will devolve. When a company all fits in the same garage, it's pretty easy to maintain the culture of the principals because they're right there. You know them personally and are aware of what they think. As a company grows, maintaining the culture that the principals want requires them to make repeated, specific, clear, unambiguous statements, backed up by actions (such as incentivisation, prioritisation, business processes that "bake in" the culture). As a contractor, I've worked for numerous large companies, sometimes more than once over a span of years. Corporate culture is a real thing, and survives changes of individuals, but is not random/organic unless you let it be, and even then, will often reflect the values baked into other principles. e.g. if you want to know where Amazon's so-called mercenary culture comes from, check out their leadership principles [0]. [0] https://www.amazon.jobs/principles https://www.amazon.jobs/principles