What You Do Is Who You Are

What You Do Is Who You Are Plot Summary

Introduction

The morning sun was just breaking through the clouds as Elena walked into her new office. As the newly appointed leader of a struggling team, she felt the weight of responsibility on her shoulders. The previous manager had left amid declining performance and team morale. Now, everyone was watching, waiting to see what she would do differently. She took a deep breath and wondered: How do truly great leaders build cultures that not only survive but thrive? What invisible forces shape how people behave when no one is watching? This fundamental question drives the fascinating exploration in these pages. Through compelling historical narratives and modern business case studies, we discover that culture isn't simply a list of values painted on office walls or enumerated in employee handbooks. Rather, it's a living, breathing entity shaped by specific actions, shocking rules, and powerful symbolic gestures. From revolutionary leaders who transformed slave societies to prison gang leaders who rebuilt broken cultures from scratch, the most successful culture creators understand that what you do literally creates who you are. These leaders recognized that culture is not merely what you believe, but how you behave—especially when facing your greatest challenges. Their methods reveal universal principles about creating environments where people naturally make the right decisions, even when no one is looking.

Chapter 1: Revolutionary Principles: Toussaint Louverture's Cultural Transformation

In the late 18th century, a remarkable man led the only successful slave revolution in history. Toussaint Louverture, born into slavery on a plantation in Saint-Domingue (modern-day Haiti), transformed a ragtag band of former slaves into a disciplined fighting force that defeated three European superpowers: Spain, Britain, and France. What makes this achievement particularly astonishing was the cultural transformation required. Slavery had systematically destroyed any positive cultural foundations. Slaves were forbidden to read, constantly separated from family members, and subjected to brutal violence. They had no reason to trust anyone, no way to build knowledge, and lived in constant fear of torture or death. This constellation of horrors created a culture with low education, minimal trust, and a focus only on immediate survival. So how did Louverture rebuild a functional culture from such damaged foundations? First, he kept what worked. Rather than attempting to create an entirely new culture from scratch, he identified existing strengths, such as the songs slaves sang during midnight voodoo rituals. He transformed these into an encrypted battlefield communication system that European armies couldn't decipher. His soldiers would scatter in the woods around enemy forces and begin their voodoo songs - when they reached a certain verse, it signaled the coordinated attack. Louverture also established shocking rules that demanded explanation, thereby programming his values into the culture. His most notable rule forbade married officers from having concubines - despite rape and pillaging being the norm for soldiers in that era. When officers inevitably asked "Why?", the answer embedded itself into the cultural fabric: "Because in this army, nothing is more important than your word. If we can't trust you to keep your word to your wife, we definitely can't trust you to keep your word to us." Perhaps most courageously, Louverture made decisions that dramatically demonstrated his priorities. After gaining control of the island, many of his soldiers wanted revenge on the plantation owners. The easy path would have been ordering them killed. Instead, Louverture not only let them live but allowed them to keep their land - while requiring they pay workers one-fourth of the profits and live on their plantations to ensure fair treatment. This decision established what a thousand speeches could not: the revolution wasn't about revenge, and the economic well-being of the colony was its highest priority. What Louverture understood intuitively was that culture is not what you say but what you do. His actions, not just his words, transformed slave culture into something revolutionary. He showed that rebuilding a broken culture requires keeping useful elements, creating rules that shock people into questioning assumptions, and making difficult decisions that visibly demonstrate your true priorities.

Chapter 2: The Code of Action: How Samurai Virtues Build Lasting Organizations

For nearly seven hundred years, the samurai warrior class ruled Japan through a powerful code called "bushido," or "the way of the warrior." This code enabled them to maintain remarkable cultural consistency across centuries of change and turmoil. Unlike modern corporate "values" that often exist merely as beliefs, the samurai defined culture as a code of action - a system not of values but of virtues. The most famous line in Hagakure, the classic collection of samurai wisdom, states: "The way of the warrior is to be found in dying." Another shocking cultural principle was to "Keep death in mind at all times." While contemplating mortality might seem morbid to modern ears, it served a profound purpose. As Bushido Shoshinshu explained: "If you realize that life here today is not certain tomorrow, then when you take orders from your employer, and when you look in on your parents, you will have the sense that this may be the last time - so you cannot fail to become truly attentive." This awareness of mortality underpinned both loyalty and scrupulous attention to detail. Samurai would diligently groom themselves, bathe in the open air, oil their hair, and meticulously maintain their equipment. As Hagakure notes, "Although paying so much attention to personal appearance may seem vain, it is because of the samurai's resolve to die at any moment that he makes preparations so meticulously." The samurai system rested on eight virtues: rectitude, courage, honor, loyalty, benevolence, politeness, self-control, and sincerity. Each virtue was carefully defined and reinforced through practices and stories. These virtues weren't isolated concepts but worked together as a system, balancing one another so no single virtue could be misunderstood or misused. For example, the virtue of politeness consisted of complex rules determining how a samurai should behave in all situations - how to bow, walk, sit, and even drink tea. Though specific rules might seem arbitrary, they were rooted in the belief that politeness was the profound expression of love and respect for others. Yet politeness without sincerity was considered an empty gesture; lying to be polite had no value. When Ben Horowitz founded Andreessen Horowitz, he applied samurai principles by defining the virtue of "respect for entrepreneurs" in precise, actionable terms. This wasn't just a vague aspiration but was implemented through a concrete practice: being on time. Anyone late for a meeting with an entrepreneur had to pay a fine of ten dollars per minute. This practice embedded respect into everyday behavior by requiring people to plan previous meetings properly, end them with discipline, avoid distractions, and even think about when to use the restroom. The samurai approach teaches us that enduring cultures require more than abstract values - they need virtues defined by specific actions. A culture only works if people understand exactly what behaviors are expected in everyday situations. By defining virtue through action rather than aspiration, the samurai created a cultural system that lasted through centuries of change and still influences Japanese society today.

Chapter 3: Breaking and Rebuilding: Shaka Senghor's Prison Leadership Journey

James White, later known as Shaka Senghor, entered the Michigan prison system at nineteen years old, convicted of murder. His first day out of quarantine provided a brutal cultural orientation: he witnessed a man get stabbed in the neck. The attacker "does it so calmly and casually, discards the knife, and goes to the chow hall," Senghor recalled. This moment forced immediate introspection: "I realized that if this is the worst, then I could make that decision and survive." Prison provided culture's hardest test case. With trust completely broken, Senghor had to build from first principles. He joined the Melanics, a prison squad with principles derived from the Black Panthers and Malcolm X. But he soon discovered that the leaders weren't living up to their own code. When one member named T Man received money from outside, leaders manipulated and stole from him by exploiting his insecurities about his racial identity. Senghor confronted them: "We're not doing that anymore, because it's against our code." This principled stand launched Senghor's rise to leadership. Unable to stage a direct coup (their code prohibited physically violating another member), he instead used the Socratic method in meetings, asking questions like, "If a leader does not follow his own instructions, is he a leader?" Gradually, he replaced the old leadership and rebuilt the culture around consistent principles that members actually lived by. Senghor's culture faced its greatest test when a new prisoner named Stoney arrived - a man who had beaten and killed the daughter of one of Senghor's members. Stoney immediately sought protection by joining the Nation of Islam, a powerful group in the prison system. After negotiations failed to resolve the situation, Senghor ordered Stoney's death, risking war with the Nation of Islam. To his surprise, there were no repercussions - the Nation respected his cultural logic backed by strength. Yet this victory brought a profound realization: "My decision solidified our organization. But it also solidified an aspect of the culture that I did not intend. We were fucking savages." Senghor began to understand the power of his influence and the unintended consequences of his decisions. When some gang members later wanted to stab a football player who had caused a woman's death, Senghor called a meeting. He went around asking each member what crime they had committed, then pointed out how their victims' families might feel similarly vengeful toward them. This exercise helped everyone step outside their perspective and recognize the cycle of violence they were perpetuating. Senghor gradually transformed his squad by making small but consistent cultural changes. He required members to break bread together regularly, discussing books he assigned about emotional intelligence and personal growth. Eventually, prison administrators who had once demonized him began asking him to organize seminars on empathy and trauma. Senghor's journey reveals how culture literally changes who we are. The environment we inhabit shapes our behavior and identity - but with conscious effort, we can also reshape that environment. His experience demonstrates that cultural change requires living your principles consistently, gathering your team frequently, and helping them see beyond their immediate circumstances. Most importantly, it shows that to change a culture, you must first be willing to change yourself.

Chapter 4: Inclusion as Strategy: Genghis Khan's Meritocratic Empire

Genghis Khan, often remembered as history's most fearsome conqueror, was actually one of its most revolutionary cultural innovators. Born as Temujin, a frightened boy in a tiny nomadic tribe, he conquered more land than anyone in history - over twelve million square miles, from the Persian Gulf to the Arctic Ocean - with an army of just 100,000 men. His secret weapon? A radically inclusive culture that transformed how empires functioned. The traditional Mongol society was rigidly hierarchical. Each lineage was known as a "bone," with those closest to tribal leaders considered "white bones" (superior) and more distant lineages called "black bones" (inferior). Born a black bone and later cast out as an outcast, young Temujin experienced firsthand how such rigid systems waste human potential. This shaped his revolutionary approach to culture. After uniting the Mongol tribes in 1189, Temujin made his first organizational innovation: he assigned responsibilities based on ability and loyalty rather than kinship. He abolished inherited aristocratic titles and eliminated caste hierarchies - shepherds and camel boys could now become generals. He called all his subjects "the People of the Felt Walls" (the material used for yurt walls), symbolizing they were a single clan. To further cement this meritocracy, he made it a capital offense for family members to become leaders without being properly elected. Genghis Khan defined loyalty differently from his contemporaries as well. While most leaders demanded warriors die for them, Genghis viewed loyalty as a bilateral relationship that gave him significant responsibilities toward his people. When two horse wranglers warned him of a plot, he made them generals. When his troops captured an enemy archer who had nearly killed him, instead of executing the man, Genghis made him an officer after the archer explained he was just following orders. This archer later became one of his greatest generals. Most revolutionary was his approach to conquered peoples. Rather than treating aristocratic leaders with special care while enslaving common people (the standard practice), Genghis executed the aristocrats and incorporated ordinary soldiers into his army. This not only swelled his ranks but established him as an equal-opportunity employer. After defeating the Jurkin clan in 1196, he had his mother adopt a Jurkin boy and raise him as a son, making clear that the conquered would share in future conquests as though they were part of the original tribe. When the highly civilized Uighur people surrendered without a fight in 1209, Genghis deployed their officials throughout his realm as judges, generals, scribes, and tax collectors. After success with Chinese scholars in administration, every time he captured a city, he had its scholars interrogated - essentially interviewing them for open positions. By incorporating foreign engineers, he captured knowledge needed to build the most advanced fighting force of his era. Don Thompson, who rose from Chicago's notorious Cabrini-Green housing project to become the only African-American CEO of McDonald's, applied similar principles of inclusion. When confronting bias, Thompson chose a positive approach: "There are two ways to approach being the only black guy in the meeting. You can think, 'Everyone is looking at me' - and start sliding down the slippery slope: 'They don't like me, they don't like black people...' Or you can think, 'Everyone is looking at me and they have no idea of the experience that is about to hit them in the face called Don Thompson.'" The revolutionary insight shared by both Genghis Khan and modern inclusive leaders is seeing people for who they truly are, not what they look like or where they come from. True inclusion means recognizing that talent exists everywhere, but opportunity does not. By breaking down artificial barriers and judging people solely on their abilities and contributions, organizations can access untapped reservoirs of human potential.

Chapter 5: Modern Applications: Cultural Techniques for Today's Leaders

When Reed Hastings founded Netflix after selling his previous company, Pure Software, he was determined to avoid the culture problems that had plagued his first venture. At Pure, every time they encountered a problem, they aggressively implemented processes to fix it. The unintended consequence was a rule-heavy environment that stifled creativity. "The company was increasingly bureaucratic, slow, and not fun," Hastings reflected. Netflix began as a DVD-by-mail company competing with Blockbuster, but Hastings always knew streaming was the future - that's why he named it Netflix, not "DVD By Mail." By 2010, Netflix had enough streaming content to run an experiment in Canada, which had no DVD-by-mail service. They signed up as many Canadian streaming subscribers in three days as expected in three months. The age of streaming had arrived, but the company's culture was still built around DVD delivery. Hastings faced a cultural crossroads: the DVD business generated all the revenue, but every time he raised vital discussions about streaming, conversations reverted to optimizing the DVD service. He made a shocking decision to demonstrate his priorities - he kicked all the executives who ran the DVD business out of his weekly management meetings. "That was one of the most painful moments in building the company," he said. "Because we loved them, we'd grown up with them, and they're running everything that's important. But they weren't adding value in terms of the streaming discussion." This dramatic move signaled that Netflix's future was streaming, not physical media. Hastings understood that culture wasn't just what he said was important, but what he actually prioritized through his actions. The result was spectacular - Netflix transformed from a company ridiculed by media giants into a powerhouse worth over $150 billion, nearly double what AT&T paid for Time Warner. Todd McKinnon, CEO of Okta, demonstrated another powerful cultural technique: passing the test on your core values. Three years after founding Okta, which provided secure identity systems for cloud applications, the company was struggling financially. A potential large deal with Sony would make or break the quarter. The good news: the deal was on track. The bad news: Okta's sales rep had promised Sony a feature called on-premise user provisioning would be delivered in months, when in reality it was years away. Sony wanted McKinnon's word the feature was coming soon. Telling the truth might lose the deal and risk layoffs or worse. Stretching the truth would likely secure the deal and save the company. "I knew that I could get the deal if I stretched the truth," McKinnon recalled. "But I knew that everyone from the sales rep to the engineers would know that I had done that. They would assume that little lies were okay." McKinnon chose to risk the company rather than compromise his cultural commitment to integrity. Remarkably, Khosla Ventures funded Okta's next round despite the missed quarters. Today, Okta is worth nearly $15 billion and has never been hacked - the integrity McKinnon insisted on became the foundation of their success. These modern examples show how cultural decisions often create painful short-term sacrifices for long-term gains. True cultural leadership means making difficult choices that demonstrate your real priorities, not just your stated ones. The most powerful way to shape culture isn't through speeches or mission statements, but through visible actions that force everyone to confront what truly matters in your organization.

Chapter 6: Designing Your Culture: Aligning Values with Strategy

"Be yourself." This fundamental advice applies not just to individuals but to organizations designing their cultures. When Charles Barkley famously declared, "I am not a role model," his teammate Hakeem Olajuwon countered with "I am a role model." As Olajuwon explained, Barkley lived a dual life - one person in public, another in private - creating immense personal stress. Olajuwon, by contrast, was exactly the same in both settings. This reveals a key principle: attempting to integrate others' expectations in ways inconsistent with your own beliefs and personality will cost you your leadership effectiveness. If you try to be someone else, not only will you be unable to lead, but you'll be ashamed to have people emulate you. As Barkley essentially said, "Don't follow me. Even I don't like me." Once you're comfortable with who you are, map that identity onto the culture you want. When Dick Costolo became Twitter CEO, his advisor Bill Campbell joked that if you set off a bomb at 5 p.m., only the cleaning staff would get killed. Costolo wanted to change the culture to encourage harder work. Being a natural "grinder" himself, he worked late every night after dinner with his family, making himself available to anyone still there. Soon, many employees were working longer hours too. Had Costolo not been the type who could focus effectively for long periods, his plan would have failed. Your culture must also align with your strategy. When Jeff Bezos created Amazon's long-term strategy, a key element was maintaining a lower cost structure than competitors. Thus, frugality became central to their culture. Famously, desks at Amazon were initially built by buying cheap doors from Home Depot and nailing legs to them. When shocked new employees asked why they worked at makeshift desks, the consistent answer was: "We look for every opportunity to save money so we can deliver the best products for the lowest cost." For a company like Apple, whose strategy depended on building the most beautiful, perfectly designed products in the world, frugality would have been counterproductive. When John Scully fired Steve Jobs for his lack of cost consciousness, he nearly destroyed the company. Not every virtue fits every strategy. Cultural design must also account for necessary subcultures. Any significant organization will have variations across different functions. In technology companies, engineering and sales typically develop distinct subcultures. Engineers value precision, linear communication, and technical excellence. A good engineer answers questions directly and values speed and accuracy. Salespeople, by contrast, see direct questions as opportunities to understand deeper motivations. When asked "Do you have feature X?", a good salesperson rarely answers yes or no, but probes: "Why do you think feature X is important?" These differences aren't failures of cultural cohesion but necessary adaptations to different roles. While core values like customer focus and ethical behavior must apply company-wide, trying to make all aspects of culture identical across functions means weakening some functions in favor of others. Perhaps the most effective approach to designing culture is framing it as a specification for the kind of employees you want. Stewart Butterfield, founder of Slack, transformed his culture by focusing on four attributes: smart (disposed toward learning and improvement), humble (like Steph Curry - confident yet selfless), hardworking (disciplined and focused), and collaborative (providing leadership from everywhere). "Someone with strength in all four attributes is the perfect Slack employee," Butterfield explained. "These four are especially valuable in combination, because if you have just two of the four it can be a disaster." This framework makes hiring decisions clearer and helps everyone understand what behaviors are valued. The most important element in any culture, however, is one rarely stated explicitly: people must care. They must care about quality, the mission, being good citizens, and the company's success. A huge portion of cultural success is determined by what gets rewarded. Every time an employee works hard to propose a change only to be met with bureaucracy or indifference, the culture suffers. Every time someone is recognized for pushing the company forward, the culture strengthens.

Chapter 7: Navigating Edge Cases: When Cultural Principles Conflict

A new executive arrived at a technology company only to discover her team was in chaos. Half the engineers were fighting with the other half, deadlines were being missed, and morale was collapsing. The company prided itself on having a "radical transparency" culture where everyone could speak their mind. But this value had been weaponized - team members were using "honesty" to deliver brutal personal attacks rather than constructive feedback. This scenario highlights one of culture's greatest challenges: navigating edge cases where cultural principles conflict or break down. Even the most carefully designed cultures will face situations that test their boundaries and reveal unintended consequences. Customer obsession, for instance, is a virtue many companies embrace. Nordstrom and Ritz-Carlton built their reputations on understanding every customer desire and working relentlessly to satisfy them. But this virtue broke down catastrophically for Research In Motion (BlackBerry). Their customers valued battery life, keyboard speed, security, and IT integration above all else - so BlackBerry focused exclusively on maximizing these qualities. When Apple introduced the iPhone with its initially poor battery life and on-screen keyboard, BlackBerry dismissed it as a toy. Their maniacal customer focus had become tunnel vision, shrinking their market cap from $83 billion to $5 billion. Cultural rules often become sacred cows that everyone tiptoes around - until they topple and crush you. When Andreessen Horowitz launched, they made a brand promise: if you raised money from them, the general partner sitting on your board would be a former founder or CEO of a significant tech company. To enforce this, they established a rule against promoting people to general partner from within the firm. This made sense initially since top founder-CEOs weren't interested in non-GP positions. But as the firm succeeded, their perspective changed. They learned entrepreneurs valued the firm's network of relationships more than direct advice. Meanwhile, their junior people had internalized the culture and become its best evangelists - but some were beginning to leave because they couldn't rise to partner. The rule designed to enforce their culture was actually undermining it. After years of resistance, they promoted their first internal candidate to general partner, Connie Chan, who proved exceptional in the role. How do you know when your culture is truly broken rather than just facing normal challenges? Three telltale signs emerge from experiences across organizations: First, when the wrong people quit too often. If your business is going well yet people are leaving at higher than industry rates - particularly the people you most want to keep - you likely have a culture problem. Second, when you're failing at your top priorities. If customer satisfaction remains poor despite making it your number one focus, the problem is cultural: your culture isn't rewarding people for delighting customers, but for hitting other metrics instead. Third, when an employee does something that truly shocks you. If someone behaves in a way you can't believe, remember that your culture somehow made that behavior acceptable. The most powerful technique for correcting a damaged culture is the object lesson - a dramatic warning implemented after something bad happens. When Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese general, was asked to train concubines as soldiers, they giggled at his commands. After warning that disobedience was unacceptable, he executed the two leaders and installed replacements. The remaining concubines immediately became perfectly disciplined soldiers. The story's seeming unfairness was key to its effectiveness - it traveled throughout the kingdom, ensuring no one would ever again mistake military orders for jokes. In modern organizations, similar principles apply when facing existential threats. If a salesperson cuts a side deal allowing a customer to return products (thereby committing accounting fraud), firing just that person won't change the culture. The entire chain of command should be removed, creating a powerful object lesson: at this company, we never do anything illegal. The most challenging cultural conflicts often involve "culture breakers" - employees whose behaviors undermine your carefully constructed environment. The Prophet of Rage is particularly tricky - an incredibly productive employee with indomitable will who gets results but leaves damaged relationships in their wake. Often coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, these employees have trained themselves to walk through fire to prove their worth. They're corporate WMDs - ultimate weapons whose deployment can be destabilizing. Managing such employees requires understanding that they dish it out better than they take it. Focus feedback on how their behaviors produce counterproductive effects rather than attacking the behaviors themselves. Recognize you can't completely transform them, but can moderate their rough edges while leveraging their exceptional productivity. These edge cases remind us that culture isn't about perfection but conscious choice. The goal isn't a flawless culture, but one that knows what it stands for and where its boundaries lie - even when those boundaries are tested.

Summary

Throughout history and across organizations, the most enduring cultures share a fundamental truth: they are defined not by what people say, but by what they do. Toussaint Louverture transformed slave society not through speeches but by creating shocking rules that demanded explanation. The samurai maintained their cultural dominance for seven centuries by defining virtues through specific actions rather than abstract beliefs. Genghis Khan built history's largest empire by judging people solely on their abilities rather than their backgrounds. And modern leaders like Reed Hastings demonstrate priorities through difficult decisions, not just inspirational statements. These revolutionary culture creators understood that culture isn't what you aspire to be - it's how your people actually behave when no one is watching. They recognized that culture is programmed through memorable stories, visible symbols, and consequential choices that force everyone to confront what truly matters. Whether forgetting the prison inmate who kills to avenge a member's daughter or the CEO who risks company survival rather than compromise integrity, these leaders show that cultural moments matter most when the stakes are highest. The path to creating an enduring culture begins with honest self-reflection. What values do you truly embody, not just espouse? What behaviors will you reward, and which will you never tolerate? How will your organization make decisions when you're not in the room? The answers must align with both your authentic self and your strategic goals. Culture isn't about perfection - it's about conscious choice and consistent action. By focusing on what you do rather than what you say, you can build an environment where people naturally make the right decisions, even in the hardest circumstances. After all, what you do isn't just what you accomplish - it's who you become.

About Author

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Ben Horowitz

Ben Horowitz is the cofounder and general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs building the next generation of leading technology companies. The firm's investments include Airbnb, GitHub, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. Previously, he was cofounder and CEO of Opsware, formerly Loudcloud, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007. Horowitz writes about his experiences and insights from his career as a computer science student, software engineer, cofounder, CEO, and investor in a blog that is read by nearly 10 million people. He has also been featured in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the New Yorker, Fortune, the Economist, and Bloomberg Businessweek, among others. Horowitz lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife Felicia.Follow him on Twitter @bhorowitz and his blog, www.bhorowitz.com.

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