A founder overwhelmed by rapid growth learns that Home Depot faced the same problem. The host says the real issue is deciding how much time you'll keep investing versus taking rewards now, framing it as a marshmallow test between short-term gains and building something lasting.
Chapters
I get another letter. It says, Dear Lou, I run a company that is growing by leaps and bounds. Congratulations. And there are days that I feel I'm losing control. I know we have to maintain our entrepreneurial culture, and that requires agility and speed. However, I can see our bureaucracy growing, and I'm struggling to keep up. Okay, first of all, this isn't uncommon. Happens to the best of organizations. Even the largest ones like Home Depot with Bernie Marcus, right? Just shot up, did amazingly well because of his great culture. All these founder cultures have done just incredibly well, and when the founder leaves, it all goes to pot, just goes away. Here's the thing: if you're doing really well, you're doing something right. So you have to hold on to that something that is right, and everybody needs to know what that right is. When people know what you expect, they will come to you to know what to do. If they don't know what you expect and what your vision is, then they won't come to you anymore, and you'll remain somebody who hides away in your office. So you have to answer a very fundamental question. If you're making billions of dollars and you're running a company that is growing by leaps and bounds, what's important to you? Are you gonna spend quarter of your time inside of that company, half of your time inside the company, all of your time inside of that company until it's stable and goes up the hockey stick and stays there rather than has complete horrible decline. How are you going to treat your company as it grows in leaps and bounds? Are you gonna give the same energy you gave to it at the beginning? Are you gonna keep your energy up as it grows by leaps and bounds? Are you going to continue to give the advice and require training and development and understanding to everybody in that company who is is now achieving bureaucracy after such great success. It's up to you as CEO. Are you gonna kick back and get that extra vacation home? Take that extra million inside your account? Take that extra $10 million in bonus? Or are you gonna reinvest so you can create a living company and legacy for yourself and for thousands of other people that can have great jobs and you can still make that $10 million or $20 million in 5 years. The marshmallow effect. Are you gonna get your 1 marshmallow now or wait 3 hours from now and get 10? You decide. Which one are you going to be? A leader for the now or a leader for the future?
