Personally, I tend to be someone who likes the work a certain way. I will IMPOSE this way of working on everyone around me.

In fact if I can’t do this, I don’t see myself lasting - which is why I’ve mostly been a founder. Absolute right to be a dictator.

Here is just some of the strange things I’ve done:

• Built a box fort

• fake cease and desist letters

• customized peptide vials with our mission on it

• running meetings with a bit of whimsey

• blunt and direct feedback frequently via slack

• forcing my comms framework for asynchronous chats

These little things - tone, pace, humor, expectations - become a local culture cluster around me. Then those clusters meet others, and over time, one gravity wins out.

Here is my take.

Culture evolves toward the strongest nuclei.

How Culture Actually Spreads

Culture isn’t what you write down. It’s what you tolerate. People copy what gets rewarded, ignored, or praised.

If you celebrate velocity, others start moving faster.
If you let sloppiness slide once, it becomes the new normal.
If you allow someone to stay cynical without fixing or leaving, you’ve normalized complaining.

Every Slack message, emoji reaction, and ignored issue teaches the team something.

Culture is caught, not taught. And the biggest signal of all: who gets promoted.

That’s your culture’s true north.

Cultural Nuclei and Beacons

Some people emit strong cultural gravity. Others orbit them unconsciously.

They define what “normal” feels like — the pace of replies, how direct feedback is, how high the bar sits. You can’t silence them. You can only align them or let them go.

Positive cultural beacons make everyone sharper. They set standards without needing authority. Negative ones drag the system down — the chronic complainers, the fragile egos, the ones who always think the problem is “someone else.”

If you want to shape culture, start by identifying your cultural beacons.

Ask: If everyone behaved like them, would this be a place I’d want to work?

Rituals and Artefacts

Rituals make the invisible visible. They’re the operating symbols of your culture.

Our quotebook celebrates humor.
Box forts remind us not to take ourselves too seriously.
The “Feedback:” tag normalizes candor.
The Slack emojis, the nicknames, the memes — they form a shared language.

These rituals aren’t random fun. They’re how you encode behavior into muscle memory.

They make the culture feel alive, not theoretical.

You can tell how healthy a team is by how much they laugh — and how fast they recover from feedback.

Closing Thoughts

Culture isn’t words on a Notion page. It’s how people behave when nobody’s watching.

It’s invisible until it’s not. Until a decision, a crisis, or a Slack message exposes what you really stand for.

You don’t create culture once.
You broadcast it daily.
And over time, the strongest signals win.

Until next time,

Ajay

🧠 Ajay’s Resource Bank

A few tools and collections I’ve built (or obsessively curated) over the years:

• 100+ Mental Models
  Mental shortcuts and thinking tools I’ve refined over the past decade. These have evolved as I’ve gained experience — pruned, updated, and battle-tested.

• 100+ Questions
  If you want better answers, ask better questions. These are the ones I keep returning to — for strategy, reflection, and unlocking stuck conversations.

• Startup OS
  A lightweight operating system I built for running startups. I’m currently adapting it for growth teams as I scale Superpower — thinking about publishing it soon.

• Remote Games & Activities
  Fun team-building exercises and games (many made in Canva) that actually work. Good for offsites, Zoom fatigue, or breaking the ice with distributed teams.

✅ Ajay’s “would recommend” List

These are tools and services I use personally and professionally — and recommend without hesitation:

• Athyna – Offshore Hiring Done Right
  I personally have worked with assistants overseas and built offshore teams. Most people get this wrong by assuming you have to go the lowest cost for automated work. Try hiring high quality, strategic people for a fraction of the cost instead.

• Superpower – It starts with a 100+ lab tests
  I joined Superpower as Head of Growth, but I originally came on to fix my health. In return, I got a full diagnostic panel, a tailored action plan, and ongoing support that finally gave me clarity after years of flying blind.