10 CEOs On Why Culture Is Key To Scaling Your Company
Reading Time: 8 Minutes
There's a common misconception in business.
We're talking about company culture. The fastest-growing tech companies view culture differently from the rest.
Culture isn't an optional side project to hand off to the Office Manager.
It's a strategic tool to scale faster.
How do I know?
Well, don't take it from me. Take it from the industry leaders.
Companies like Nvidia, OpenAI, and Shopify say that culture matters most when things move quickly. As a leader, you can't be everywhere at once. You can't review every decision. But you can design systems so that people's ways of working align with your values and create the desired results.
Your ability to change is now directly tied to your ability to thrive in business.
McKinsey considers culture a core component of a company's ability to adapt to change. So, it's no surprise that CEOs are taking this seriously. Culture isn't something to delegate, and it certainly won't take care of itself.
The best of the best cultivate their culture with intention.
As MIT Sloan Management Review points out, today's tech leaders are "codifying" their culture just as carefully as they code their products.
Here's how 10 tech leaders are doing it and what you can learn from them.
Nvidia
OpenAI
ScaleAI
Google, DeepMind
Databricks
Conviction
Canva
Figma
Mistral AI
LinkedIn
1. Jensen Huang - CEO, Nvidia
"Innovation requires experimentation. Experimentation requires exploration. Exploration results in failure. Unless you have a tolerance for failure, you will never experiment."
—Jensen Huang
Adopt the mindset of a scientist.
Huang credits Nvidia's success to a culture that fosters an environment where teams can explore, take risks, and learn quickly from failures.
Harvard Business Review found that this culture of learning plays a key role in Nvidia's ability to innovate. What started as a gaming graphics company has transformed into a global leader in AI computing.
Nvidia also maintains a flat structure to move quickly. Their rapid development cycles and data-based decision-making reinforce this.
Huang focuses on creating the right environment where teams feel a sense of autonomy and safety, enabling these possibilities. This sense of safety is also known as Psychological Safety, which is a key driver of a company's speed.
2. Mira Murati - CTO, OpenAI
"It's tough to build these technologies in a vacuum, without contact with the real world."
—Mira Murati, Fast Company
Boldness needs grounding in reality.
At OpenAI, Murati has helped shape a culture that prioritises safety. It moves carefully before it acts quickly. The focus is on building AI that's useful, safe, and shaped by IRL feedback.
Instead of rushing results, they focus on learning fast first.
The OpenAI team runs post-mortems when things go wrong, challenges each other's assumptions through "red teaming," and tests ideas early.
It's a culture built on feedback, reflection, and continuous improvement with each iteration. This approach is central to AI that aligns with human values.
3. Alexandr Wang - CEO, Scale AI
"Over time interviewing, I've found that I mainly screen for one key thing: giving a sh*t. To be more specific, there are two things to screen for: (1) they give a sh*t about Scale, and (2) they give a sh*t about their work in general."
—Alexandr Wang, CEO & Co-Founder, Scale AI
Passion over polish.
Scale AI's Founder, Alexandr Wang, keeps it simple when it comes to hiring. People who care are people who win. He looks for people who care not just about the job but also about the company and its mission.
Getting the right people on board builds the foundation for growth.
That means being all-in and taking pride in work, with a genuine desire to create something meaningful.
This mindset is what makes Scale AI a major player in the AI space.
4. Demis Hassabis - CEO, Google DeepMind
"Our mission is to solve intelligence, and then use that to solve everything else."—Demis Hassabis
Research lab first, business second. This is how Demis Hassabis sees DeepMind.
They take an AI-first approach to research & development. So, everything they do, from picking projects to building teams, centres around one goal: advancing artificial general intelligence (AGI) responsibly and thoughtfully.
Hassabis talks about DeepMind as if it operates on a "research-first operating system," where constant learning and improvement are integral to its operations.
To support this, the company has developed tools like their AI "co-scientist," which helps researchers test and refine ideas, and "FunSearch," which tackles complex math problems through trial and error.
These tools aren't just for productivity but are part of how things get done.
5. Ali Ghodsi, CEO, Databricks
"A company's culture is more or less the personality of its CEO…formalise that, so make culture principles out of that, then you're giving people the cheat sheet of how they can succeed in your company."
—Ali Ghodsi, CEO, Databricks, Stanford Interview
Keep everyone on the same page.
Now, pay close attention to this tip. Under Ghodsi's leadership, Databricks has become one of the most influential data and AI platforms globally, valued at over $40 Billion.
He offers founders golden advice about their company culture.
Ghodsi believes culture should be documented and practical. At Databricks, that means turning leadership values into clear principles that guide how people work, grow, and make decisions.
He advises founders to define their own cultural "principles" based on their leadership style and values. These principles can guide hiring, promotions, and management decisions. For Databricks, those principles revolve around empowering engineers and transparency.
This clarity helps ensure consistency as the organisation scales.
6. Sarah Guo - Founder, Conviction
"Pace flows from the top. When leaders demonstrate comfort with imperfect information and rapid decision-making, it cascades through the organisation"—Sarah Guo
Role model imperfection, as this creates speed.
It almost sounds contradictory, but Guo of Conviction believes it's essential to lead with human values first to move fast.
Conviction has become a big name in AI venture capital, helping fund early-stage companies. Guo argues that the ability to move quickly, or "pace", is one of the most essential qualities to look for when hiring for startups.
That mindset echoes throughout Conviction's culture. Instead of over-planning, the company prioritises learning as they go.
In a recent blog post, she emphasised her belief that the speed at which a company moves starts with its leaders.
But pace isn't about hustling or grinding. It's about knowing when to act fast and when to take your time.
You can spot people with this skill because they:
→ Stay focused on results and always finish what they start.
→ Ask the right questions that get to the point.
→ Come up with creative solutions when things need to move fast.
The goal is to foster an adaptive culture, and this begins at the top.
7. Melanie Perkins - CEO, Canva
"We wanted everyone at Canva to be the master of their destiny and understand that this is the place where everyone can shape our company and culture."—Melanie Perkins, Co-Founder & CEO
Culture is co-created and co-owned.
At Canva, this idea shows in everything from team rituals to product strategy. Culture is something that everyone contributes to.
In a blog post, she emphasised the importance of giving employees the freedom to take the lead and make a meaningful impact. This freedom helps create an environment where people feel empowered to truly influence the company.
Canva's practices, like "season openers" and open design reviews, create space for shared ownership. Their values, like "be a force for good," are integral to the business strategy.
This culture of community mirrors their product as well. Fast Company noted how Canva's culture has been key to its success.
Their designs went viral, partly because they were so shareable, and the team constantly listened to user feedback. They even rewarded these community contributions.
This mindset has enabled Canva to grow from a simple idea in the classroom to a $40 billion design platform used by over 220 million people.
8. Dylan Field - CEO, Figma
"Our internal culture at Figma encourages everyone in the company to help make Figma better."—Dylan Field, CEO, Figma
Before Adobe acquired Figma, the company had already built a strong culture based on collaboration, fast feedback, and transparency.
It still works independently in many ways to this day. And the product itself reflects that approach.
Figma also used an AI tool called Enterpret to collect customer feedback from sources like support tickets, surveys, and social media. This tool helped them better understand what customers needed and improve their products.
This constant flow of feedback helped Figma grow rapidly while maintaining clear communication and fostering strong teamwork.
9. Arthur Mensch - CEO, Mistral AI
"We aim to build the best open models in the world with a small, exceptional team."
—Arthur Mensch, Mistral CEO (Wired UK, 2023)
Simplicity + transparency = speed.
Mistral AI is one of Europe's fastest-growing AI companies.
Now valued at $6.2 billion, the team has grown exponentially in under two years. Radical openness is at the core of their fast growth. Their models are open source by default, and that's a cultural choice as much as a technical one.
The team is intentionally lean and flat in structure. Fewer layers mean decisions happen quickly, and everyone stays close to the mission.
CEO Arthur Mensch has said their goal isn't to be the biggest company, just the best at what they do. That belief shapes everything. Even with a significant partnership with Microsoft, Mistral keeps a strong focus on transparency and accessibility.
At its core, Mistral's culture embodies high trust, high standards, and a focus on problems that matter.
Simple.
10. Reid Hoffman - Founder, LinkedIn & Partner, Greylock
"Pay attention to your culture and your hires from the very beginning."—Reid Hoffman, Co-founder, LinkedIn.
It's a common myth that your company can be too small to think about culture.
Reid Hoffman strongly disputes this. For him, culture isn't something you tack on later; instead, it's something you build from day one.
It's a tool LinkedIn uses to accelerate its growth. Hoffman always encouraged startups to move fast, even if, as Harvard Business Review found, they make mistakes doing so.
When your team knows what you stand for, you don't need endless approvals or heavy processes. The crux is how your team behaves when nobody's watching. People know how they should behave.
Clarity saves time.
Playing too safe is the real risk in a changing world.
Top Culture Tips for Startups
1. Start Early
Don't wait. Startups move fast, and if you're not clear about the kind of culture you want, one will form anyway, often by accident.
Set clear values from the start and ensure they reflect in how your team works day-to-day.
2. Hire People Who Care
Look for people who genuinely care about your mission and want to do good work, not just those who are chasing status or a salary.
A team that's emotionally invested will move faster and handle pressure better.
3. Focus On Speed Over Perfection
Speed matters. You'll make mistakes, but that's fine. What matters more is learning from them and not slowing down, trying to over-polish everything.
4. Learning Is Part Of The Work
Encourage people to test things, take calculated risks, and treat every project as an opportunity to learn.
It's about building adaptability into the culture from day one.
5. Create Feedback Loops
Don't save feedback for quarterly reviews. Make it part of how your team works, whether that's through async comments, check-ins, or team retros.
It'll help everyone progress without adding extra layers.
Creating a strong company culture starts early. The winners in the future of work will be the ones who treat culture as core infrastructure from the outset.
Working on your culture? It's worth doing it right.
At Superhumxn, we help you scale what matters. Send us a message here.
