The HubSpot Culture Code: Creating a Company We Love


Several years ago, we published a public beta of the HubSpot Culture Code slide deck. This deck started out as an internal document, and as a company who values transparency, we decided to share it with the world.

Several years ago, we published a public beta of the HubSpot Culture Code slide deck. This deck started out as an internal document, and as a company who values transparency, we decided to share it with the world.

Like HubSpot, the Culture Code is a perpetual “work in progress,” so we’ll update it periodically. To date, we’ve updated it more than 25 times, and what you see below is our latest version. The presentation has been very well received, with more than 5 million views so far. (Thank you!)

HubSpot is growing. We have about 73,400 customers and more than 3,800 employees in the company now. We have more than $674 million in annual revenue. We are grateful to our customers and to the inbound community for the success we’ve had so far.

Download Now: Free Company Culture Code Template

And we’re grateful to those of you who have hopped on for the ride. We thought it could be interesting and possibly even useful to offer up this inside look at HubSpot and the people behind it. What do we believe? What makes us tick?

The HubSpot Culture Code

The answers to those questions (and more!) are in the mega-slide-deck included above. The document has evolved and expanded over several years into this latest version. We hope you like it and will share it.

HubSpot Culture Code Highlights

  • Culture is to recruiting as product is to marketing.  
  • Whether you like it or not, you’re going to have a culture. Why not make it one you love?
  • Solve For The Customer — not just their happiness, but also their success.
  • Power is now gained by sharing knowledge, not hoarding it.
  • “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” -Louis Brandeis
  • HubSpot has a no-door policy, where everyone has access to anyone in the company.
  • You shouldn’t penalize the many for the mistakes of the few.
  • Results should matter more than when or where they are produced.
  • Influence should be independent of hierarchy.
  • Great people want direction on where they’re going — not directions on how to get there.
  • “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”
  • We’d rather be failing frequently than never trying.

We hope you found the deck useful. If you’d like to reach out or provide feedback, you can do so in the comments below.  Or, you can find me on twitter @dharmesh.