As the greatest startup ever, from zero to two and half billion team members today, Christianity’s ascent is worthy of study for business people. Its spinoffs continue 2,000 years after its founding, with one, the Catholic Church, generating $170B in annual revenue. Their founder passed away at 33, only three years after the initial founding. But his lessons were memorialized in writing, and thus propagated around the world. Christianity was so impactful that we mark time with its founding as reference. Clearly, there are management lessons to be drawn here.
Edward Gibbons boiled the lessons down to five. These lessons can be applied to company building, from founding to culture creation to institution building.
The five reasons can be summarized as exclusive zeal, the immediate expectation of another world, the claim of miracles, the practice of rigid virtue, and the constitution of the primitive church.
The exclusive zeal of the Jews; Jews vs Christianity; Defense vs Offense
The Jews were great at building an insular culture, a low churn rate. The Christians added growth in new business, while maintaining low churn.
Gibbons had described in his earlier chapters that the ancient world generally lived in religious harmony; that is, they accepted the rites and rituals of other nations. The Jews were different. Gibbons writes that “they refused to join in the common intercourse of mankind”.
Companies must cultivate this exclusive zeal to truly change the world. To simply coexist, it is not necessary. Many companies operate without any exclusive zeal. They will have mediocre growth rates, no moat, and average returns on invested capital. But to forge a new path, it is a prerequisite. The drawbacks of this exclusive zeal are also illustrated by the Jews; it is an orientation better suited for defense than offense. As Gibbons puts it...
Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable of repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue.
Christianity took this defensible position, and added offense. They offered divine favour to anyone who wanted it. In this fusion of Christian salesmanship with Jewish exclusivity, Christianity endeavored to maintain and cultivate its current adherents while continually adding more.
Companies also need to have this ability to be very insular, close knit, private, while at the same time interacting with success with the external world. A closed system doesn’t let irritants in, but it also does not grow.
The doctrine of the immortality of the soul among the philosophers; Immortality of Soul as Long Term Optimization
Anything worth doing is worth optimizing for the long term. Christians knew they were going to live forever, so that focuses the mind. We are building companies to last 100 years.
The second cause outlined by Gibbons is the doctrine of the immortality of the soul among the philosophers. which translated into business terms is“long term optimization”.
Before Christianity, philosophers like Cicero were decidedly indifferent to the idea of eternal life. By emphasizing the long term, companies can stand out just like Christianity did. The effect is striking when you optimize for the long term. There is also the other idea here that there exists some sort of future business state that will be so much better than the current state.
While this is probably a fanciful idea, as business success usually leads to more business problems (more money, more problems), it is this belief that sustains long hard days. There is a clear comparison here to the Christians believe in heaven. They were willing in the early church to be martyr’s in order to advance the mission.
Miraculous powers of the primitive church; The founding myth
Every company has its founding myth. Google has the garage, Christianity has water & wine.
Peter Thiel talks about the founding of a company as a binary event, going from zero to one. It is the essential miracle of a company, and can only happen once. Peter Thiel says that you found a company by asking yourself one question, which is “What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”. The Christians found their answer.
For companies in the Silicon Valley, the garage has played a key role in these stories. It is almost like Silicon Valley’s version of the manger in Bethlehem. So the founding myth is typically centered around the idea of humble, hard, against the odds beginnings that miraculously turned into something spectacular.
In this chapter, Gibbons is relatively tongue in cheek about the existence of miracles. But the point he makes is not that the miracles were real or fake; people believed that they were real.
Virtues of the first christians; onboarding and cultural inculcation
The first hire is the most important hire. The next hire is the most important hire.
The fourth cause is the virtues of the first christians. Gibbons explains that what he means by these virtues is essentially two things, that contributed to making Christian lives more pure and austere than their Pagan counterparts; repentance for past sins, and the desire of supporting the reputation of the society in which they were engaged. The business counterparts here again, fit nicely. Any business is improved by the employees being quick to own their mistakes, and being constructively and positively engaged with their broader community.
In Christianity’s case, the ability of repentance to turn criminals into healthy members of society was important. And the rehabilitation of these criminals was made easier by the existing member’s desire to protect the reputation of the Christians. Gibbons says it well.
When the new converts had been enrolled in the number of the faithful, and were admitted to the sacraments of the church, they found themselves restrained from relapsing into their past disorders by another consideration of a less spiritual but of a very innocent and respectable nature. Any particular society that has departed from the great body of the nation, or the religion to which it belonged, immediately becomes the object of universal as well as invidious observation. In proportion to the smallness of its numbers, the character of the society may be affected by the virtue and vices of the persons who compose it; and every member is engaged to watch with the most vigilant attention over his own behaviour, and over that of his brethren, since, as he must expect to incur part of the common disgrace, he may hope to enjoy a share of the common reputation.
This is a perfect exposition of how current employees should welcome and onboard new employees. New employees should be read the sacraments (company values), be trained by existing employees (onboarding), and should be made aware of the new group they have just joined (cultural inculcation).
A final point here that Gibbons makes is that Christians shunned earthly pleasures and war. They were peaceful but not hippy-like. Therefore, their energies, which were not dampened by Christianity, were directed towards building the Church. Which brings us to the last point.
Christians active in the government of the church; focus
No work life balance. Work life integration.
The fifth and final cause of the explosion in popularity of Christians is the Christians active in the government of the church.
But the human character, however it may be exalted or depressed by a temporary enthusiasm, will return by degrees to its proper and natural level, and will resume those passions that seem the most adapted to its present condition. The primitive Christians were dead to the business and pleasures of the world; but their love of action, which could never be entirely extinguished, soon revived, and found a new occupation in the government of the church.
So, the Christians had focus. Not on war or pleasure, but in the active government of the Church. Any successful company will be led by a founder who is very focused, and company success depends on how mission focused everyone else in the company is.
So, over time, you need deacons or priests or long term employees or whatever you want to call them who give their working lives to the institution. Startups encourage this type of behavior with the four year vesting of equity options. This aligns incentives for the long term and can cultivate a number of like minded individuals focused on company success.