Growth

Growth runs across two registers in Kyle’s notes. In the company/startup register it is the operating discipline of compounding a business metric. Product Led Growth — The End User Era cites Brian Balfour’s 2014 definition — growth as “the blending of marketing, product and engineering into one tight knit team,” whose mission is “the growth rate of a metric that tells a more complete picture of the business” rather than any single function’s output. This is the Playbooks / Playbook — Growth / Playbook — Sales / Sales cluster: growth as a holistic funnel discipline, distinct from sales as a function but tightly coupled to it.

In the civilizational register, Homo Deus frames perpetual economic growth as the engine of modernity’s bargain — “modernity’s deal of giving up meaning for power,” with knowledge as the one non-exhaustible resource that keeps the engine running. This pairs with the Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited material on what unchecked growth in scale and technique does to the individual, and with Berkshire Hathaway Annual Letters on the durability and persistence of growth rates as a question for capital allocation. Kyle’s June 29th, 2021 reading log gathered the strands together: an LSV research paper on the persistence of growth rates, the Andreessen–Barksdale HBR conversation on how to make money, and a sales-leadership podcast — growth read simultaneously as an empirical question (do high rates persist?) and an operating one (how do you produce them?).

Where this appears

• Product Led Growth — The End User Era — Brian Balfour’s definition of growth as a blended marketing/product/engineering team owning a holistic funnel metric
• Homo Deus — perpetual economic growth as modernity’s engine, trading meaning for power, fueled by non-exhaustible knowledge
• Berkshire Hathaway Annual Letters — growth and its durability as a capital-allocation question
• Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited — scale and technical growth set against the individual
• Playbooks · Playbook — Growth · Playbook — Sales · Sales — growth as an operating discipline in Kyle’s startup playbook cluster

Quick Capture links — June 29th, 2021

Reading-list links from Kyle’s June 29th, 2021 Roam daily-note “Quick Capture” log.

• https://salesleaderpodcast.fireside.fm/24
• https://lsvasset.com/pdf/research-papers/Level+Persistence_of_Growth_Rates_FINAL.pdf
• https://hbr.org/podcast/2014/07/marc-andreessen-and-jim-barksdale-on-how-to-make-money
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CZVCPQ4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1