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Would love to hear more about examples of purpose, which may be seen at your time at Google or Airtasker.

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That's a good question, and has made me reflect on the difference between purpose and mission. I think the mission is explicit, and both Google and Airtasker have good ones: respectively to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, and to empower people to realise the full value of their skills.

The purpose is a bit more implicit, and is best thought of as the organisation's "reason for being". It is thus infused into the culture.

At Google I think the purpose was to generate value at the confluence of technology and data. Search, Maps, YouTube, Waymo, Ads, and so on all fit into that mould. (There is a secondary class of more defensive plays such as Android that exist primarily to protect Google's most important channels).

At Airtasker our purpose is to act as a new type of connective tissue for the services economy. We bring people who need a particular type of skill with the people who possess that skill. That is our purpose, and remembering that makes all other decisions easier.

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