Mission Achievement Threatens Purpose

Shaan Puri shares insights about the challenges companies face when they achieve their original mission, drawing from his experience at Twitch and observations of Facebook/Meta. He believes mission achievement can be a critical turning point requiring strategic reinvention.

Key Points:

• Mission Achievement Challenge

  • One of the "most dangerous things for a company is achieving your mission"
  • Companies must reinvent their mission and think bigger after reaching initial goals
  • Example: Twitch reached their goal of 1 million paid creators after 8-10 years
    • Created both celebration and uncertainty about "now what?"

• Facebook's Mission Evolution

  • Original mission was to "connect the world"
  • Successfully achieved this goal
    • Reached nearly everyone with internet access
    • Had to launch satellites in India to find more users
    • Reached point where "total addressable market becomes your actual market share"
  • Now investing $10B yearly in VR/AR/metaverse
    • Represents massive pivot into new mission territory
    • Amount is what most VR companies hope to be worth total

• Leadership Perspective

  • Zuckerberg's approach isn't purely profit-driven
  • Company philosophy: "We don't build great services to make money, we make money to build great services"
  • Focus on reinvesting profits into building next-generation services
  • Mission shift represents strategic evolution rather than just rebranding

• Scale Implications

  • Reached such massive scale that user churn from death alone is significant
  • Daily losses from natural attrition exceed total user counts of many other services
  • Forces company to think differently about growth and future direction