Summary of Measure What Matters

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. Fall 1999. John Doerr had just written the biggest check of his venture capital career—$12.5 million to a startup with brilliant technology and boundless ambition but no coherent business plan. Larry Page and Sergey Brin needed more than money. They needed a framework for making hard choices, for knowing when to double down and when to abandon losing bets, for keeping their growing team aligned as chaos threatened to overwhelm them. Doerr introduced them to something he'd discovered decades earlier as an engineer at Intel: Objectives and Key Results. He'd learned the system from Andy Grove, arguably the greatest manager of the modern era, who had used OKRs to build the best-run company Doerr had ever witnessed. As a venture capitalist, Doerr had since shared this approach with more than fifty companies. Everywhere it was genuinely implemented, it worked. The concept is elegantly simple. Objectives define what you're trying to achieve—the ambitious goals that matter most. Key results specify how you'll get there through concrete, measurable actions within a defined timeframe. Crucially, everyone's goals become visible across the entire organization, from entry-level employees to the CEO. The impact reaches far beyond basic goal-setting. OKRs force organizations to surface their most critical work rather than spreading effort across too many priorities. They create focus and enable coordination across teams. They keep people on track while linking objectives across departmental silos, unifying the company toward shared outcomes. Along the way, they boost workplace satisfaction and retention because people understand how their work contributes to something larger.