.@maggie_hott head of GTM at openai was the first sales hire at Slack Day 4: "We've been hacked. It could cripple the company." "March 2015. Slack was the Silicon Valley darling. ~50 people in one room. I'm ready to start selling, then my boss pulls me aside with the news." That afternoon, Stuart Butterfield stood on a desk and addressed the whole company: "This is going to be challenging and tough, but we will make it through. It's going to take hard work from every single one of you." The trust employees had in Stuart was palpable. First time I'd seen true culture of accountability. 4 days later, we went public with the breach. They put me on the phones for every hacked customer. Trial by fire at its finest. The lesson that stuck: Alignment isn't tested in good times—it's revealed in hard ones. "How the team responded mattered more than the crisis itself. Most people don't even remember that breach today. But I learned 3 things that shaped how I think about culture: → Authentic leadership matters (people follow leaders they trust) → Culture is your strongest defense in crisis → Alignment drives outcomes when teams rally around shared values" The breach didn't define Slack. How we handled it did.

@maggie_hott Full preso here: