Who vs. What

I remember reading an interview with the head of M&A at Google ( at the time ) where he was asked a series of questions about what made the companies successful that Google had targeted for acquisition.

One of the first points he talked about was the fact that it was extremely rare that a successful company was not headed by a partnership at the top. It was his position that two heads were almost always better than one, and that three rarely worked.

I have been thinking a lot about this topic lately, in light of some of my own personal circumstances. I have not ever run my own company, but have observed several very successful ones from the inner circle. They seem to share the following characteristics:

1. The partners almost always have a distinct set of skills that make them uniquely valuable to the partnership. Traditionally in a tech company you would have the guy that can sell and the guy that can build it, but it’s not always been that clear of a distinction.

2. The partners have the freedom and willingness to challenge each other openly, sometimes literally scream at each other, and be better for it in the end.

3. There is implicit trust.

4. There is agreement on the vision for the company.

Given how important people are to the success of a company, I ask the question: Is the ‘Who’ just as important ( or more ) than the ‘What’?

If you have the right people, I could make the case that you will come up with the right idea if you have the patience for it. I also think ideas and what a company does often change drastically over time, but if you have the right people you are able to stay on course and adapt. I think the concept of the “eureka” moment is highly overblown. Most really great ideas come about by having a hypothesis and testing it, then adjusting appropriately.

I don’t think you can say the same for the ‘What’ side of the equation. Merely having the idea is not enough. You either have to be able to pull it off yourself, or have the right people around you to make it all happen.

So, which is it? ‘Who’ or ‘What’? Let me know what your experiences have been, and if you think I am way off.