Should company wins be celebrated in a way that also reinforces how far there is left to go?
4 recorded positions from 4 people, first published Nov 22, 2023. They do not agree — the readings below are what each one actually argued.
Celebrate wins paired with reminder of remaining work prevents post win complacency
Jeff Seibert · published Nov 22, 2023
Founders should celebrate small wins with their team even if they personally never feel a moment is a success
A permanent 'we haven't won yet' mentality is demotivating for a team, who need to feel they're getting somewhere and connected to what's happening
Scope: applies to how you lead the team, not the founder's private mentality; wins must be celebrated 'correctly' — small weekly wins, e.g. a Friday show and tell
12:02 20VC: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play, Why Apple Will Win in an AI World, Why Google is the Most Vulnerable Incumbent, Will LLMs Be Commoditised, Which Startups Are Thin vs Thick Wrappers on Top of LLMs with Jeff Seibert, Founder @ Digits
Mike Shebat · published Nov 27, 2023
Wins should be celebrated but immediately paired with a reminder that the company hasn't made it, because complacency after milestones is what kills companies
Most Y Combinator startups that graduate fail because they get complacent and lose momentum; next quarter is not guaranteed to be as good as the last, so it's always day one until IPO and arguably never
29:25 20VC: Keith Rabois and Mike Shebat on Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic, Why First-Time Founders are Better Than Serial Entrepreneurs, Why Remote Work Does Not Work, Why the Best Founders Always Start in their Teens & Why Companies are Cults?
Also on the record
Harry Stebbings · published Nov 22, 2023 · hedged
Celebrating wins risks creating complacency; a paranoid, always-chasing posture is preferable
He and Jeff have never felt they've won and are always chasing someone
11:49 Stay perpetually paranoid and chasing rather than celebrate wins
Sam Corcos · published Dec 11, 2023
Regularly celebrating wins is critical for team morale
Winning is an intoxicant — visible forward progress inspires people to push harder, while a constant sense of failing and losing is demotivating
14:41 Regular win celebration boosts morale like an intoxicant
Your assistant can query this graph directly — 4 positions here, 19,646 across the corpus. Add 996.fm over MCP.