Molly Graham on Scaling Through Chaos, the Line Between Strong Culture and a Cult, and Why Delegation Is an Identity Problem

Molly Graham⁠ has spent nearly two decades inside companies during their fastest and messiest years of growth. She started at the Council on Foreign Relations and as a wilderness instructor for the National Outdoor Leadership School before moving into technology, where her team at Google went from 25 people to 125 in nine months. She then spent nearly five years at Facebook building the culture, compensation, and performance systems that carried it from 500 employees to 5,500, was COO of Quip, the productivity startup that sold to Salesforce for $750 million, and ran operations at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. In 2015, she wrote "Give Away Your Legos" for First Round Review, which handed the technology industry its standard metaphor for scaling. Molly now runs Glue Club, writes the Substack Lessons, and in April took over as host of TED's WorkLife from Adam Grant. Molly Graham joined host Robert Glazer to talk on Scaling Through Chaos, the Line Between Strong Culture and a Cult, and Why Delegation Is an Identity Problem. Thank you to the sponsors of The Elevate Podcast Framer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠framer.com/elevate⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Northwest Registered Agent: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠northwestregisteredagent.com/elevate⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ AG1: ⁠⁠⁠drinkag1.com/elevate⁠⁠⁠ MOD: ⁠⁠⁠mod.com⁠⁠⁠ Netsuite: ⁠⁠⁠netsuite.com/elevate⁠