First of all: Excellent piece. Every time I read about Jessica Livingston I inexplicably feel totally inadequate (in an inspiring way, don't worry :D). Secon

First of all: Excellent piece. Every time I read about Jessica Livingston I inexplicably feel totally inadequate (in an inspiring way, don't worry :D). Secondly, about Culture. The problem with talking about culture is that it's too high-level of a model to have a conversation about and come out with useful, applicable results. Several commenters here expressed a belief that "culture = ping pong tables", or office naps, or not wearing suits or something. They're not wrong -- the word "culture" can feasibly refer to those things, but (I think) that's typically not what we talk about when we talk about how important Culture is to startups. I would like to read and hear about lower-level models of "Culture" that really drive success. Here are some really bad examples of what I mean: Clarity in speech, clear division of responsibility, product delivery / QA process norms, onboarding processes, personal respect, etc. You might not mean any of these things when you say "culture". I realize this is an incredibly hard if not impossible task -- the whole reason we defer to Culture is because its importance is matched only by its complexity. However, given that it seems like such a ubiquitous and important factor for startup success, I feel that progress in producing better startups can only be made by tackling this problem on the low-level.