What’s in a mission?
An ode to being lucky
Every tech company has a mission. Few actually deliver life-altering impact.
During the past seven years, I’ve worked with companies that deploy autonomous vehicles, develop software for autonomous commercial aircraft, create clean energy systems, invent COVID-19 tests, move goods across the globe, help people save for retirement, cure diseases with novel technology, and protect organizations’ digital assets with white hat hackers.
Every tech company has a mission. Among the more than 10,000 startups founded each year1, many are disrupting and transforming. Of the 10% that succeed2, many are accelerating and democratizing.
But it’s not always enough. A scant few among the 10% truly make an impact on our lives and make our world a better place to live (remember when Clubhouse was valued at four billion dollars?3 Yeesh.)
Most companies I’ve worked with got my mental gears turning, but it wasn’t unusual if I had to squint a little bit to see the societal impact. Many were financially successful businesses — thriving even, with healthy AAR and unicorn status. Some even found a way to fundamentally upend a market or create a new one entirely4. During the early days of my tech communications career, that’s really what I cared about: Technology that was fascinating, scratching my mental itch. The cocktail of curiosity, awe, and excitement at novel technology isn’t easily supplanted in my Companies-I-Want-To-Work-With Hierarchy of Needs.
But with age has come introspection. When I die, I want to be proud of how I lived — a big piece of that is, professionally, how I spent my time. Did I devote my hours, in some small way, to improving things for you and I, dear reader?
I still crave the intellectual invigoration technology can provide, but it’s no longer the number one factor through which I assess technology companies.
A friend and long-time operator-recently-turned-venture capitalist, Morgan Hitzig, wrote about how venture capital is a tremendous responsibility: “We’re on the front lines of deciding what businesses should be built and why — of what the next economy looks like.” When I read that, it crystallized the importance of genuine mission impact. I’m not writing million dollar checks myself, and I’m never the most important person in any room I’m in, but I am putting my own intellectual capital behind certain organizations.
I should feel compelled not only by their technology but also by their impact on the world around me — the world I share with my family and friends and people I’ll never meet and never know.
The change in my mindset manifested itself in my work slowly. If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t take any meaningful, direct action until very, very recently. In 2024, I wasn’t actively considering my “brand” nor did I resolve myself to exclusively work with companies whose mission will positively impact society with any level of explicit intention.
It just, kind of, happened. I think my desire to work with startups whose mission mattered was burbling away in my subconscious, and I marinated in opaque and ill-defined feelings before they solidified into action.
When I reflect on the companies I’ve worked with over the last few years, I know they matter. They’re delivering life-saving medical supplies in minutes, ensuring our Armed Forces are ready to maintain peace and mobilize for conflict, providing emergency response organizations with the information they need to protect people, helping people experiencing homelessness get back on their feet, and detecting novel pathogenic threats.
By comparison, the mission of a company building a chatbot feels … less. I have no doubt some of those businesses will thrive, and many will provide a ton of utility to some group of people. It’s just not the sort of thing that gets me out of bed anymore.
It’s easier to wake up at 5:45am to pitch a funding announcement for a startup5 or be at my desk for the fourteenth hour of a work day when I know that my role, and in turn, the company’s success means a better world for me, my friends, my family, and for society.
I consider it a genuine blessing that, as a comms-flack-turned-consultant-who-still-does-real-work (I promise I don’t simply pontificate on calls), I can pick and choose the organizations and people I work with. Being able to be picky is rare. I believe I’ve earned the position I find myself in today, but it’s never lost on me. I also know that my good fortune may not last. At the end of the day, I’ve got to put food on the table, and all money is green — if it came down to feeding my family versus feeding my personal ideals of mission and intellectual curiosity, the former takes precedence 100% of the time.
But today, I am able to fully embrace my good fortune. I work with founders I genuinely like. My small cohort of friends and professional acquaintances are brilliant people from whom I’m always learning. I’m having fun, and I swell with pride when I’m able to help companies who are helping the world. When I look at myself in the mirror, I believe that professionally, my efforts are time well spent.
That is priceless.
Shoutout to Emily Ann Hill for providing feedback and editing this essay. Check out Junetail Creative to see how Emily can help improve your writing and, for small businesses, develop an unforgettable brand experience.
Apropos of nothing, Packy McCormick wrote well about how everything is technology and how technology companies thrive “by eating someone else’s lunch or cooking up [their] own.” It’s worth the read.
This is not a hypothetical — read coverage of Adyton in Tectonic.
Totally agree! Every time I hesitate about a potential client, I realize later it's because their mission didn't land with me.