Back when I was running Cloudera, I wrote a weekly email that I called my love letter to the company. It went out to everyone, and captured whatever I thought was important just at that moment. Sometimes it was something simple -- a customer win, an update on a looming release. More often, though, it was a long-form piece on a strategic or tactical matter that was taking up space in my head.
Even in the age of millennials and YouTube, folks mostly read it, often responded.
1/
The reason that I did it was simple.
We had an amazing team of people. Even in the earliest days of the business, my job as CEO took up enough of my cortical activity that I didn't have the time or expertise to walk around and tell each of them what to do in detail.
Instead, I figured, if they knew what we needed to accomplish, understood our strategy down to the ground, they'd figure out the right way to spend their working hours.
It worked great. We moved mountains. Even had fun.
2/
I got on that treadmill thoughtfully. I knew I was signing up for a big chunk of work, every week. In the beginning, that letter was how I spent my Sunday afternoons, mailed it out before dinner. When we got big enough to have a competent HR team, one of them pointed out to me that I was implicitly telling folks that Sunday afternoons were designated work time.
That was right. Afterwards, I still wrote 'em on Sunday, but waited until Monday morning to mail them. Don't blab that around!
3/
I tell that story because of this excellent piece by @anildash:
https://www.anildash.com/2026/04/06/people-love-to-work-hard/
He is wonderfully, exactly right. Give folks the space and tools they need to do their work. Give them the information they need to understand what needs doing and why. Then let them get to it.
Today, I'm out of the game, but I've got eyeballs. I still marvel at the amazing things that smart, driven folks are doing.
People love to work hard. If your people don't, it's probably you.
4/4
Mike Olson
Clark Breyman (he/him)