You Put Your Name on Every Job You Do: Slack's Founding Principle

A Foundational Childhood Lesson

• 💡 Stewart Butterfield's father taught him a crucial lesson about reputation and pride in good work when Stewart was 11 years old.
• 🪵 The lesson stemmed from a challenge to stack a cord of wood for $20, a significant sum for young Stewart in the early 1980s.
• ⚠️ After initially doing a "lousy job", Stewart's father expressed disappointment, asking, "Is this the job you want to put your name on?" which prompted Stewart to complete the task to a high standard.

Defining Slack's Early Culture

• 🔑 Stewart shared this personal story with the early Slack team (around 12-15 people) to articulate his vision for doing a good job and how he would evaluate their work.
• 🛠️ The story became a key illustration for "craftsmanship", a core attribute and later value at Slack, emphasizing the importance of quality even in unseen details.
• 🎨 Another analogy for craftsmanship was "painting the back of the drawers", signifying a commitment to thoroughness and high standards, regardless of whether the effort was visible to others.

Impact and Accountability at Slack

• ✅ The principle, "You put your name on every job you do," often made work at Slack harder for the speaker, James Sheret, but served as a constant reminder to maintain high standards.
• 🎯 This lesson instilled values of conscientiousness and accountability among the team, shaping what it meant to work at Slack and how they approached their tasks.
• 🚀 Stewart may have shared this story to prepare the small team for impending growth, ensuring that a strong work ethic and commitment to quality would persist as the company scaled beyond his direct oversight.