Thanks for asking, Claire. I think the "technology is a mindset" perspective that birthed Slack was simply how the co-founders and early employees wanted to work together. They wanted to create work with high trust, high transparency and high latency, so they designed that all into Slack. They also didn't design anything else into Slack, because they were only working on it off the corner of their metaphorical desks, so only the bare minimum of features got built, and those were largely in existing products like IRC (Internet Relay Chat). But better for Slack.
Then it was a build > test > use > revise virtuous cycle with each of those stages gated pretty tightly by the core team – nothing got built without strong agreement.
I do also think I could have gone deeper into the idea that Slack "reflected how they believed everyone should work. The Slack application made an argument for a way of working, for a system of work, reflective of specific values." But it's mostly my own conjecture!
Love the dissection of Slack's product values versus corporate vaules. The point about defaulting to openness being a shock for new users is so true, I remember early adopters freaking out about public channels untl they realized transparency actually built trust faster. The tension you describe between startup ideals and enterprsie needs captures a genuine dilemma, selling to big orgs means accepting their preference for control over speed.
Thank you for the comment and sharing your experience with Slack. I'll work to tackle the tension between startup ideals and enterprise needs in part 2 with the launch of the new Slack product, Enterprise Grid.
Curious about Franklin’s “technology is a mindset” - how would you describe this mindset that birthed the Slack values? What is its foundation?
Thanks for asking, Claire. I think the "technology is a mindset" perspective that birthed Slack was simply how the co-founders and early employees wanted to work together. They wanted to create work with high trust, high transparency and high latency, so they designed that all into Slack. They also didn't design anything else into Slack, because they were only working on it off the corner of their metaphorical desks, so only the bare minimum of features got built, and those were largely in existing products like IRC (Internet Relay Chat). But better for Slack.
Then it was a build > test > use > revise virtuous cycle with each of those stages gated pretty tightly by the core team – nothing got built without strong agreement.
I do also think I could have gone deeper into the idea that Slack "reflected how they believed everyone should work. The Slack application made an argument for a way of working, for a system of work, reflective of specific values." But it's mostly my own conjecture!
Love the dissection of Slack's product values versus corporate vaules. The point about defaulting to openness being a shock for new users is so true, I remember early adopters freaking out about public channels untl they realized transparency actually built trust faster. The tension you describe between startup ideals and enterprsie needs captures a genuine dilemma, selling to big orgs means accepting their preference for control over speed.
Thank you for the comment and sharing your experience with Slack. I'll work to tackle the tension between startup ideals and enterprise needs in part 2 with the launch of the new Slack product, Enterprise Grid.