Articles by Gokul Rajaram
The CEO’s most important operational responsibilityGokul begins by quoting Ben Horowitz: “Perhaps the CEO’s most important operational responsibility is designing and implementing the communication architecture for her company.” He goes on to cover: • Why communication architecture matters • Evergreen communication choices • Communication choices with a daily, weekly or fortnightly cadence • Communication choices with a monthly, quarterly or annual cadence
- Values-based Firing
Gokul explains how there are three types of reasons to fire someone: performance, policy violation, or values violation.Values-based firings are the least common, but are needed to reinforce company values.
- Running an All-hands
Gokul uses Square's all-hands meeting as a template for explaining how to extract the most value from the time spent in an all-hands.
- Gokul's SPADE Toolkit: How to implement Square's famous decision-making framework
Gokul and the team at Square developed this framework to solve problems arising from consensus-based decision processes. The SPADE process covers the Setting for the decision, the People who take responsibility, approve, and consult, Alternatives, the Decision made, and an Explanation for it.
