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person2008–present

Molly Graham

Disciplines:
usa
product management
culture
entrepreneurship/scaling

Summary

American executive who worked at Google, Facebook, and Lambda School and Quip — known for writing 'Give Away Your Legos' — her essay on the psychology of scaling organizations (what happens to individuals as a company grows and roles specialize away from generalists).

Core Contribution

Created the most widely shared essay on the psychology of company scaling — 'Give Away Your Legos' describes how employees feel when a company grows: the parts of their job they love get handed to specialists, and embracing that (giving away your Legos) is the only way to scale without organizational dysfunction.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • Give Away Your Legos (Molly's insight: as a company grows, everyone has to give away parts of their job to specialists; the people who struggle with this are those who hold on to their Legos rather than building new ones; the psychological maturity to cheerfully give away work you built is the single most important predictor of success as a company scales)

Historical Influences

Facebook scaling culture Organizational behavior

Intellectual Lineage

Google Facebook QuipLambda School

Contemporaries & Peers

Brian Chesky Lenny Rachitsky

Minds Influenced

Startup scaling cultureLenny's Podcast

Intellectual Posterity

Give Away Your LegosMolly Graham as scaling culture

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Molly Graham

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