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

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-githubs-first-year.html http://tom.preston-werner.com/2011/03/29/ten-lessons-from-gi...