Search for pictures of Facebook’s new offices and you’ll see a very strange thing.
The word ‘Hack’ is everywhere.
Written as graffiti on walls. Constructed in giant letters on the ground outside the building.
Sculpted out of wood.
On t shirts. On desks. On signs.
Everywhere.
What does Hack mean at Facebook? Well it’s their most important philosophy.
It’s about doing things fast. Trying stuff just to see if it works. Making countless small changes.
Not being afraid to shake things up, questioning the status quo.
Or as Mark Zuckerberg himself puts it, “Move fast and break things.”
This culture is exemplified by Facebook’s regular all night ‘Hackathons’, where their coders get together and work nonstop on fresh ideas and strategies to push the company forward. Fueled by beer and Chinese food, these giant brainstorms have been responsible for some of Facebook’s biggest breakthroughs.
The Like button, for example, was conceived during a Hackathon.
In a pre IPO letter to shareholders, Zuckerberg summed up The Hacker Way as consisting of these five attributes:
1. Focus on impact.
2. Move fast
3. Be bold.
4. Be open
5. Build social value
He summed it up as follows: “The Hacker Way is an approach to building that involves continuous improvement and iteration. Hackers believe that something can always be better, and that nothing is ever complete. They just have to go fix it — often in the face of people who say it’s impossible or are content with the status quo.”
Now look at your life, or company in the light of Facebook’s culture. Ask yourself, “Am i moving fast enough? Am I breaking enough things? Am I pushing the envelope? Do I have a philosophy of constant improvement and an obsession of making things better? Am I being bold?”
Best Business coaching have are confronting questions for most of us, as the majority of time we would have to admit that we are probably not living this way nearly enough.
Facebook’s hacker philosophy is a great reminder to us all to hurry up and make things happen.
Our future is decided by what we do right now. We must act quickly and aggressively to overcome the inertia of others.
We must hack our way to victory.
