Traction Book Confrontation

Alex Lieberman shares a pivotal moment in Morning Brew's history involving the book "Traction" and a confrontation with his co-founder Austin.

"I remember one day we're in WeWork, I got a message from Austin on Slack saying one of our investors, this guy Scott who created the Snuggie, told Austin about this book 'Traction' when Austin had asked him about resources to operationalize and run the business. Scott said 'I use this book Traction and you're going to read it and adopt it in your business.'

Austin read it and messaged me in Slack saying, 'Dude, you need to read this book yesterday and this is what we're going to do.' A few days went by and I didn't read the book. Austin messages me and says, 'Did you read the book?' I said no, and he responded with something along the lines of, 'I don't understand why you're not doing the thing that is the most important thing in our business right now.' I could tell for the first time that he was actually pissed at me.

So I went that day and read the entire book. I did not work - I went to the highest floor of our WeWork and just read the book. I think a few things happened: one is Traction was a game changer for our business. I also think that really became the inflection point where Austin took over as CEO of the business, not in title but in action. It was a transformational year for the company."